Captivity
by Lukeprism
Summary: The Masked Man decides after a near flawless victory on his part to take the boy as a hostage of sorts, unsuspecting of the fact that the boy might just take him hostage in return. Masked Man/Lucas. Chapter 9...finally.
1. The Blonde Boy is Captured

_**A/N: -holds head in hands-**_

_**WARNINGS: Language, mild violence, possible cliché moments, and eventual homosexuality (same sex incest, if you wanna get specific).**_

_**DISCLAIMER: The answer's always gonna be no, guys.**_

—**s—t—a—r—t—c**—**h**—**a**—**p**—**t—e**—**r—**

Something about this boy mystified me.

The way his body shook, his eyes wide and almost blank, like a wild animal with no hope for survival. The way he hesitated by mere fractions of a second before he shouted about how I'd better back away now and let him have the needle or else. The way he flinched every time I made a move, be it towards him or not. The way his knees nearly buckled when I sent that bolt of lightening their way, only to have it reflected back at me by his damn Franklin Badge. The way he shuddered as he realized that it was only him and me now, a one-on-one fight, his companions having been knocked away and out by my attack.

It was obvious he was scared out of his mind. Or at least extremely intimidated.

But then, he charged me. With that measly stick of his, he came at me, yelling like a fool and swinging wildly. It made me wonder; did he do that out of raw determination, winning over his anxiety? Or did fear prompt his actions, out of desperation? His expression is merely enraged, not leading me to any answer. But I am far from worried. I defeated this boy before, high up on Snowcap Mountain to the north, and I'm confident I can do it again.

I counter his swinging with a jab from my cannon arm. It makes contact with his stomach, knocking the wind out of him and sending him stumbling backward. I intended to follow this up with a shot from said cannon arm, but the boy knocked my arm away, causing me to instead shoot one of the boulders surrounding the area. Unamused, I swiftly raised a leg up and kicked him hard, bowling him over. His body skidded a bit across the ground as he wheezed and grunted.

In hindsight, I was probably a bit too cocky, approaching the boy as slowly as I did. As soon as I was close enough, planning then to shoot him for real, he brought a leg of his crashing into mine, tripping me up enough for him to utter a "PK Love!" The psionic attack jolted me, tearing across my body like bright, pastel-colored knives. Of course it hurt, but I was both used and desensitized to such a trivial sensation. As such, though his efforts were valiant and he rose to meet me again, I socked him in the face so hard with my metallic appendage I thought for sure I had killed him, or at least cracked his skull.

He fell like a rock, his body just kind of crumpling, so that he lay in a heap at my feet. The force of my punch had sent his head back a few feet, and I could see where blood began to soak his blonde hair. He was unconscious. I had won. No surprise there, really. But I had been expecting more of a fight. That had been rather disappointing.

For a moment, I wondered what I should do. Now would be an excellent time to kill him, just finish him and his friends off so there would be nothing else in the way of me and the needles. Or I could simply leave them. If his friends didn't wake up soon enough, the boy would just die here anyway, bleeding like he was. But a different thought struck me then.

What if I took the boy captive?

He wouldn't be able to pull any more needles. He would be under our constant watch. We could interrogate him, find out what he knows, or if he knows anything we don't. And we might even be able to convince him to join us. The other wielder of the ultimate PSI technique, the PK Love, working with us...we would truly be unstoppable. King P could use a new pet, anyway. I didn't appreciate all the attention he gave me.

After a few more moments of thought, I nodded my head. Crouching over to pluck his body off the ground, I hoisted him up into my hold, carrying him face up, bridal-style. He weighed a bit less than I had expected. Turning to the couple of pigmasks that had accompanied me down to the needle, I wave to one of them with my thumb, index and middle fingers extended, the signal to have the mothership hovering above us lower its ladder. It also meant the mission was complete, which explained the confused look on the pigmasks' faces as I walked toward them. I hadn't pulled the needle yet, but honestly, now that I had the blonde boy, there wasn't a real urgency; I could do it at any other time. The boy was now top priority.

None of the pigmasks had the gall to question me directly, though (I was the commander. My word was basically that of King P himself), so they called up to the crew in the sky and the ladder was lowered within the minute. I climbed on wordlessly, balancing the boy's weight on my right knee and clutching both the ladder and his arm with my hand. My other arm merely acted as support. I looked down at his face as we were lifted along with the ladder. It was beginning to bruise heavily on one side, and the bleeding on his noggin hadn't ceased. Pity. Though it was his fault, thinking he could win against me with such horrid methods of attack and defense.

Once back up inside of the ship, I stepped off the ladder nimbly, gray boots tapping audibly on the metallic flooring. Nodding to the men whom had assisted in lifting me up, I left them and their unspoken questions regarding whom I carried onboard in such a fashion as they went to pick up the remaining pigmasks on the ground. Out into the hallway I went, passing door after door after door and the occasional pigmask as I made my way to the elevator that would take me out of these cramped, dully lit halls and up into the more elite place of residence. I darted into the first empty lift I came across and jabbed the '3' button. There was a bit of a pause before it shot upwards two stories and lurched to a stop, depositing me there.

Upon my exit, the perceptive observer would notice the huge room I had stepped into; it was pretty hard not to notice, really. It was the main hub of the ship, King P's pride and joy, and was brightly lit with all the fluorescent sconces around and the giant chandelier hanging from the domed ceiling. A huge pink pig nose insignia lay imprinted on the shiny floor, so one never forgot where exactly they were or who they worked for. The room split off into four distinct hallways after that, two to the right and two to the left, each lit just as well. I was headed to the leftmost hallway when an all too recognizable voice stopped me in my tracks. "Commander! Welcome back!"

Taking a second to sigh and roll my eyes, I turned my head to greet him, facing him fully so I could see him clearly on account of my helmet, which blocked most of my face from view. "Oh, Fassad, what a pleasure. Thank you." The man in front of me wore very light colored brown fabric over most of his body, in the form of baggy long sleeve shirt and pants. He wore this same material wrapped around his greasy black hair and a darker brown vest and shoes completed the strange getup. The faint smell of bananas could be detected whenever said man was around. He was flanked on either side by a basic pink pigmask, expressions rendered unreadable by their masks.

Fassad's pompous smile quickly gave way to a not-so-friendly frown when he laid eyes on what Claus held in his arms. "If you don't mind my asking," he began with an almost disgusted tone, "what are you doing with the boy, exactly?"

I smiled at him, though it was obviously forced and not exactly meant to be nice. "I don't believe that's any of your business, Fassad," I chided, tone as sweet as I could possibly make it, which wasn't at all sweet, really. "But if you must know, I've decided to take him in as a sort of hostage, if you will. Who knows how useful he could turn out to be?"

Fassad returned my smile, though his was actually somewhat convincing. "Oh, really? In that case, allow me to accompany you to the imprisonment chamber. I was just headed down there myself, you know."

I shook my head, shifting the boy's weight in my arms. "That won't be necessary, Fassad. I intend to take full responsibility for him, and I don't want any of your men beating him." I paused. "Simple, patient questioning would work best on him. Besides, it'd be hard to convince him of our cause if we locked him in a six-foot cube, don't you think?"

Fassad scrunched up his face. "Then where do you plan on putting him? In your room?"

I looked back down at the boy. That was a lot of blood, seeping out into his hair. "Quite possibly. That way, I'll have him under _reliable_ surveillance twenty-four seven. Now if you'll excuse me, Fassad. I don't want him to die before I can ask him a single question," I excused myself quite politely, brushing past him and his pigmasks quickly. Fassad's presence always managed to leave a bad taste in my mouth, no matter how brief the encounter. Something about the man rubbed me the wrong way. Besides, he's always had his fair share of animosity held towards me, something I've always attributed to my being the commander (a higher rank than him, mind you) at such a young, inexperienced age.

But of course the tubby man wordlessly insisted on following me down the hall, toward the infirmary I was bound for. "Quite true," he agreed, and I could see him stroke his facial hair out of the corner of my eye. "And you know, now would be a great opportunity to test out the doctors' latest gadget, no? Especially handy if used on him."

"Hm? Oh, right." Honestly, I didn't care what they did to him, so long as he was in his right state of mind when he woke back up. "They'll probably jump him right when I bring him in there."

"Almost certainly. They haven't had a subject like him to work on since..." he paused, and I could feel his beady eyes on me, giving me a once-over. "Well, since you," he finished, the smirk audible in his tone of voice.

My left eye twitched, but I said nothing in response, instead opting to speed up my pace. What he'd said had unexpectedly struck a chord within me. Though the Pigmask Army has been funding research on chimeras and the like for longer than I can remember (about three years, to be exact), I've always hated the idea of it all. Perhaps it had something to do with my being one without my own consent. In cases like my own, it's almost understandable; they saved my life. But the other things they've created, the mutations crafted by self-proclaimed visionaries, it's all done in the name of science, for no other reason than just for the hell of it. To me, it didn't make any sense. Two or more dissimilar species just weren't meant to be combined like our researchers aimed to do. They're not _supposed_ to mesh. That's why they're individual creatures to begin with.

But, of course, such old-fashioned beliefs didn't belong here in the midst of the radical group that was the Pigmask Army. So I keep opinions like that to myself. I am this army's commander for two reasons: one, because I was saved by them (and tailor-programmed for the task, no less), and two, because I know for a fact I would be shunned by the society that flourished on the ground below. Chimeras, especially humanoids, were freaks of nature. They're wanted by none of the groups they used to belong to. You can hardly blame those groups, really. They're just looking out for themselves.

I was and still am the only human-based chimera the army has ever made. Though I am grateful for my second chance at life, I do not by any means wish this fate upon anyone else. Especially someone whom has friends and family to go back to, people who might just cut all ties with you and leave you helpless and alone, nothing left to you but the clothes on your back. That's beyond cruel. That being said, Fassad's insinuation that they might do something similar with the boy I held in my arms immediately put me on the defensive. I turned my head to get a good look at him, eye narrowed. "Kindly remember that this boy is my responsibility. I will decide what needs to be done and what doesn't."

Fassad raised hands into the air. "Of course, commander. I didn't mean any _disrespect_, you know," he insisted, slowing as they came close to the infirmary's double doors.

My eyes narrowed even further. "Of course not." I turned around to use my back to push through the doors, giving Fassad another clearly hostile smile. "I'm afraid I must leave you now, my dear comrade. Hopefully I'll see you at dinner tonight, hm?" I said to him with a tone of finality, making it clear I wanted nothing more than to not see his smug face at dinner, and continued on my merry way.

I could barely hear his amused "Likewise," before the doors swung shut in my wake.

—**e**—**n**—**d**—**c**—**h**—**a**—**p**—**t**—**e**—**r** —

_**A/N: Oh, don't mind me. I'm just the worst chapter enderer in existence is all.**_

_**God damn. Here I am, having the gall to start up another freakin' story when I have at least five others I should be working on. The hell am I thinking? I was originally going to make this a oneshot, but there's no way to make a Masked Man/Lucas story a oneshot without it being either completely PWP or long as all hell. And as we all know (too well at this point), I'm not into that kinda thing.**_

_**Dat fight scene. Lamest in existence. Apologies. Lucas is such a wimp in this story. Or is he? Hot damn, guess you'll just have to wait and see.**_

_**Anyways, if you'd be so kind as to leave a review, telling me whatcha liked, didn't like, things I can improve on, etc. etc. I'd appreciate it. I'd love to know what you guys think so far, good or bad. Though, admittedly, there's not much to see.**_

_**Thanks, and until we meet again. C:**_


	2. The Blonde Boy regains Consciousness

_**A/N: -raises a gun to her head-**_

_**WARNINGS**__**: Bondage (well okay not really), language (no, seriously. It's all Lucas' fault), eventual boy on boy action.**_

_**DISCLAIMER**__**: No, I will not have sex with y—I mean, uh, nope I don't own anything here at all. :I**_

—**s—t—a—r—t—c**—**h**—**a**—**p**—**t—e**—**r—**

I had just removed my thick jacket and let it hang almost haphazardly off the hook on the wall beside the door when I heard it. It was quiet, almost like a sigh, but it caught my attention nonetheless. The sound of someone coming to. Turning around, I glanced across the big room to the cot on which my new prisoner lay. Well, had been laying. For quite some time now; almost two full days. He stirred a bit, grimacing as his consciousness returned to him little by little. I looked on with no expression, just waiting to see the boy's reaction once he realized the predicament he was now in.

His head turned towards the wall for a moment as his arms moved up to his head, hands gripping it like he was afraid it would fly off or something. Trying and failing to sit up, he turned towards me now, blue irises peeking at me from underneath two eyelids, one porcelain and the other darkened considerably along with the lightening bruise that covered a good chunk of his face and forehead. One hand now clutched his shirt, the same red-and-yellow striped one I'd taken him in. He seemed to have a little trouble focusing until he met my gaze head-on, blinking a few times. I could see something click in his expression, and suddenly he was half-falling off the cot and onto his feet, eyes wide and arms held defensively, though he wobbled considerably. It was rather amusing. "Wh-Wha? _You_," he spat the last word like it left a bad taste on his tongue. "What are you—Why did you—Where am I?" he managed to cut himself off consecutively, apparently unable to decide on a single question before speaking.

I blinked right back at him, crossing my arms. "Let's see. I'm here because this is where I normally reside, I brought you here because I thought it might be beneficial, and I kind of already answered this one already, but you're in my quarters, aboard the Pigmask Army's mothership."

He seemed taken aback at my honesty, not used to my speaking so much (or at all, really). Maybe he felt it was weird that I wasn't pointing a weapon at him. He stayed silent, taking all of what I had said in until he seemed to realize something and shake his head vigorously, glaring at me like I had just tricked him or something. "What do you want with me?" he growled. Or tried to, anyway. It wasn't that intimidating. "Why am I here, and not in the prisoner's block or something?"

I only thought about his words briefly. I felt that it would probably be best to just come out with it to this boy instead of pointlessly beating around the bush. Thus, I answered him matter-of-factly: "I was going to convince you to join us. That and get you to answer some questions for me."

The boy actually almost dropped his guard at this. "What?" he asked, most of the tryhard-malice in his voice replaced by a sense of incredulousness. "Please tell me you didn't expect me to say yes."

I raised my arms up a bit. "I realize it could take a while for you to come around," I admitted, dropping my arms once more.

The blonde regained his intense frown. "Like hell that'll ever happen," he scoffed, jutting a hand out in my direction. "PK Love!" he yelled, wincing at both the force of said yell on his undoubtedly still-sore head and the motion of his arm, which also couldn't have been healed already.

A few seconds passed.

He blinked.

I blinked.

He lowered his arm, looking not so much shocked as completely blank. "What...?" he whispered to himself, staring at the hand forlornly.

I couldn't help but inform him of his condition. "Oh, I wouldn't try that. You see, the medics foresaw problems concerning your willingness to go along with my little plan. As such, they inserted a little chip into your brain so you can't use your PSI anymore." I paused. "Apparently, it works."

The boy raised his head to look at me, and something unexpected happened. I actually felt a twinge of sympathy for him. I fully took notice of the bandages lining his forehead, as well as the ones I couldn't see underneath his shirt and shorts. Most wouldn't have noticed, but he trembled ever so slightly, what little pseudo-confidence he'd had now completely gone. The disbelief shining in his eyes was highlighted by the fear buried a little deeper within, and he suddenly looked so small. Like a child with no idea of what to do now that the plan they had been so confident in was no longer a viable means of progress.

I almost didn't catch the fact that his gaze was shifting to and fro around the room, searching frantically for something.

He backed away quickly, and was apparently emboldened by the fact that I didn't make any moves towards him. He groped behind him, searching my desk for something, anything. Finding something that suited his fancy, he held it up; an empty ceramic bowl, the bowl I'd been eating out of the night before whilst doing a bit of paperwork. That fearful look of his was abruptly overridden by a determined kind of rage as he sized up his options. I frowned at him. Really? Did he honestly think he could overtake me with a bowl?

Apparently he did, because the thing came flying at me. I ducked out of the way and closed my eyes in irritation when it collided with the wall behind me loudly and shattered into pieces. Opening them again, I spotted him darting away and doing a quick jump onto my bed before hopping back off on the other side. I sidestepped and mirrored him with haste, realizing what he was going for a few moments too late. He grabbed the object off my nightstand before I could catch up, though he lost time on account of his unfamiliarity with the weapon. I thought I had him until he located the proper button and electricity suddenly crackled and hissed in the air. I froze, less than a swing's reach away from him, trying to foresee his next move. He held it out a little awkwardly, like he was wary of its electricity (and he had good reason to be, having felt it numerous times), but he was definitely dead serious. He swung it a little, warningly. "One more step and I'll swing it."

I paused for a few moments, if only for dramatic effect. Once he looked like he thought I was seriously going to leave him be, I lunged for him, knocking my lightening saber out of his hand before he could use it against me and pinning him to the ground. He grunted in pain but struggled valiantly against my hold, trying to buck me off somehow. I responded by forcing his hands above his head and pinning them there with my cannon arm, bending down to face him squarely. "That was a poorly thought out plan, blondie. But I'll give you an A for effort."

Our faces were pretty close, so I felt his breath when he replied, louder than he really needed to. "Shut _up!_" he nearly yelled, coughing a little afterwards. I raised my head out of the way. "Get off me," he continued, his voice a bit lower in volume.

I smiled one of those almost-but-not-quite-fake half-smiles I smiled whenever I was amused. "Huh, maybe you should've thought about that before you went and tried to beat me with a bowl and my own weapon," I suggested helpfully, reaching for a means of restraint in the pack attached to my belt. My fingers grazed something icy cold and I pulled it out, holding it where he could see it. His eyes widened. I shook the handcuffs slightly, giving him what I hoped was a disappointed frown. "I didn't want to have to use these, you know," I said, reaching up to slap them around his wrists. He made an effort to struggle again, but it was futile; the metallic restraints were on in less than five seconds. "Unfortunately, you leave me with no other choice."

I stood up and pulled him up along with me, letting his arms fall down in front of him. He looked nonplussed, but didn't make any other moves, just watched me with those blue eyes of his. I returned his gaze for a long moment, trying to decide on what I should do with him for the time being. When I decided to tie him down to the cot, I turned away for a moment to try and remember where I kept the rope.

I wasn't really expecting the crazy yell or the blow to the back of the head.

Of course, it didn't hurt me much thanks to my helmet, but even when I turned around, he kept wailing on me with his handcuffed fists, brows knitted together in what was actually an intimidating expression of anger. He swung his arms wildly, hitting my helmet, my side, my arm, my side again, my helmet again. He screamed at me like a madman. "You _fucker!_ You hurt my friends! You're pulling the needles! You kidnapped me! You're an evil bastard! You prick! Just...just die!" he choked on the last word, and through the haze of dull pain I could see his eyes become glossy and his face redden. He was also in pain, one completely different from mine. "This is all your goddamn King P's fault! I hate it! I hate him! I hate _you!_ Working under him like a stupid kissass! I hate you!"

And the funny thing is, I _let_ him beat me up. I stood there, silently, like a statue, and allowed him to hit me to his heart's content. I'm not sure why I did it. It may not have been life-threatening, but his blows would still bruise me up pretty nicely. I don't exactly know why I felt such pity for this boy, when I felt next to nothing when I went and killed people under King P's orders, but I did. So I left my guard down, and he took out all his frustration and stress and sadness out on me. He was punching and yelling hard and loud, but he didn't even try to do something as simple as take my helmet off to make his punches to my face count for more. He was lost in his rage, pounding and swinging and sobbing and screaming at a surprisingly steady, if not frenzied, rate.

It was mesmerizing, like some kind of intense ritualistic dance.

Eventually his rage and energy tapered off and his blows became less and less until he just stopped altogether, panting and hiccuping and sagging away. Our gazes locked for umpteenth time, but this iteration was much different. He looked almost confused at my lack of defense (so was I, really, but I wasn't about to let him on to that) and that fearful look was back in his eyes, only dulled by exhaustion and resignation. That and...he looked lost.

I finally made a move, stepping forward and holding my good arm out towards him. He flinched, obviously expecting some kind of rebuttal, but I merely grabbed his shoulder and gently turned him around, pushing him towards the very cot he'd woken up on. He didn't object this time, trudging along like a good little prisoner. When we reached it, I expected him to want to lay face up, so I was prepared to assist him if necessary, but he simply flopped down face-first, making the structure shake dangerously. It held up, however, and the boy pulled his legs up onto the cot with him before he gave up entirely. I shook my head, deciding that I didn't need to tie him there; he'd be out for a while yet.

Wincing a bit when I went to stretch my arms, I sighed. I'd be pretty sore in the morning, for sure. But I wasn't given much time to dwell on the subject; a few knocks on my door pulled me out of my thoughts. Wondering who it could be, I approached the door slightly cautiously.

When the thing slid open due to my pressing the button next to it, however, I saw there wasn't much need for concern. A couple pigmasks stood nervously outside, and saluted quickly when they saw me. "C-Commander, sir, we're so sorry to disturb you, b-but..." one trailed off, obviously peeking onto the room behind me. "We heard screaming, so we were j-just wondering if you were, uhm, o-okay..."

I gave them a fake smile. "Oh, is that all? Thanks for your concern, but everything's fine. Just getting a little worked up." I glanced back at the blonde boy, noticing he hadn't moved an inch.

They both perked up. "O-oh, I see. S-sorry, Commander sir. Please excuse us!" the same one said before they saluted again and hurried off. I rolled my eyes and closed the door once more.

Sighing once again, my eyes wandered back over to the bedridden boy, watching his body rise and fall in the rhythm of his breathing.

This whole plan of mine was going to take a lot more effort than I'd originally bargained for.

—**e**—**n**—**d**—**c**—**h**—**a**—**p**—**t**—**e**—**r** —

_**A/N: No excuses for my lack of activity. There was school work and vacation and some anime (Birdy the Mighty) and the acquisition of a new game (Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep), but none of that justifies my lameness. Apologies.**_

_**I was originally gonna write this from Lucas' PoV, but damn it all, I always wuss out and switch PoVs because I suck. This time I'ma keep it all Commander's PoV. Unless you guys want some Lucas PoV or something, I guess. I like writing from this PoV, anyway. Claus tries to think he's emotionless, but deep down, it's there.**_

_**This chapter isn't very long. -sigh- But y'know what? I always prioritize word count, and that's dumb because word count doesn't have anything to do with how good a story/chapter is. So fuck it. I'll write what I write and you guys'll take it like men. Or women.**_

_**Leave a review if you want. I'd appreciate it lots. For every review I get, Claus (ER I MEAN THE COMMANDER SIR) will tie Lucas up and kiss him senseless.**_

_**Alright, that's a lie. But I'd still appreciate the review. C':**_

_**Adieu.  
><strong>_


	3. The Blonde Boy reveals his Name

_**A/N: I love you guys and your kind reviews. Seriously. Joo gais rawk. ;u; This one's for you, fellas!**_

_**WARNINGS: Half-nakedness (lol), legit lolz (mhmm), eventual shounen-ai/BL/boy-on-boy lovin'/whatever term you fancy (I like BL best hah).**_

_**DISCLAIMER: Yes.**_

_**...just kidding. D:**_

—**s—t—a—r—t—c**—**h**—**a**—**p**—**t—e**—**r—**

I'll admit I was a bit surprised when I opened the door to my quarters after a monotonous day of carrying out commander-like duties to find the blonde boy sitting on my bed, and not on the cot to which I'd tied him early that morning.

He looked up at me as I stepped over the threshold, face neutral. His various injuries were improving at an alarming rate; the one on his face was barely noticeable anymore, and the way he held his arms told me that they were probably nearly healed as well. The army's medicinal staff took pride in their effective treatments, after all. "My friends," he stated rather shortly. "Where are they? Did you...? Oh, so help me _God_, if you hurt them—"

"Now, now," I cut him off, holding my good hand up to halt his speech. His expression had become rather angry, to say the least; the last thing I needed was an overly-rebellious prisoner, PSI-less or not. "No need to get one's underwear in a wad. Your friends are fine. Apart from electrocuting them," he flinched noticeably here, "I didn't do anything to them. They're not necessary to me."

He gave me a half-dirty look, but looked away again when I met his gaze. He shifted a bit where he sat, like he was uncomfortable.

I raised an eyebrow but ignored this, instead hitting upon a topic that'd been bothering me for a bit now. "Now then, when did you manage to wiggle out of my knots?" I asked, eyes shifting to the rope that lay uselessly on the floor next to the cot. "Please don't tell me you've been rummaging through my things."

The boy looked back at me to grimace. "Like I'd have any interest in what you have hidden in your drawers," he retorted. "I woke up about an hour ago. It took me five or so minutes to untie your shoddy knots, and I was just pacing around up until ten minutes ago. Your bed is kinda hard."

I was a little taken aback at how nonchalant he seemed, but put my good hand on my hip. "Pacing? Brainstorming about some half-brained plan to try and escape?" I chuckled a bit. "It isn't going to work. Your PSI was the only thing you had going for you. Without that, you're a sitting duck. And my bed is just fine." I approached him now. When he stayed put, merely looking up at me to gauge my reaction, I pushed him off the bed and onto his feet, not hard enough to send him stumbling but none too gently either. "If you don't fancy it, get off. And while you're at it, take a shower. You look like you haven't had one in...a while."

It amused me when his face went red, and he narrowed his eyes. "Well, excuse me for not being as well off as you. What am I supposed to change into? Back into these clothes?" he asked, and I had to admit he had a point. His red and yellow-striped shirt was sprinkled with dirt and dried blood, and his shorts looked worse for wear.

I waved this argument off. "That's invalid. I've got some spare clothes. You and I are about the same size." I motioned to my dresser, sitting over on the wall closest to the door. "I'll find something. You go shower."

He tried to appear grumbling and semi-irritated, but I could tell he wasn't opposed to the idea of a good shower. After he wandered into and closed the door to the bathroom, I sighed and shrugged off my jacket, throwing it on the bed instead of hanging it up by the door. Slipping my boots off with my feet, I padded over to the dresser and pulled out two articles of clothing I didn't wear anymore: a black t-shirt and khaki pants. Figuring he'd probably need underwear too, I grabbed some of those as well and padded back over to the bathroom, opening the door without a second thought.

He about jumped a mile, emitting something between a squeak and a yell and whipping around to face me, his shirt balled up in his hands. There was a bandaged wrapped around his midsection. "H-hey!" he snapped, backing up a bit. "Ever heard of knocking?"

I frowned at him. "It's my bathroom, dolt. And I had to bring you clothes," I said, shaking said items as I said it. Setting them down, I stepped toward the shower and looked from it to the boy and back again. "Do you know how to use it?"

His mildly sheepish expression was answer enough.

Sighing, I reached past him to turn the lever from 'OFF' to near the 'H'. "Right about here is the temperature you want. If not, you can make it cooler by turning it a little more toward the 'C'. Turn it all the way around to 'OFF' again to, well, turn it off. Soap's over here, shampoo's over there, and there's a towel hanging above the toilet." I gave him a thumbs up. "Good luck."

I barely caught his embarrassed glare before I had turned around to walk back out of the room, shutting the door behind me.

The first thing I did was retrieve the rope. _Better save it for later._ Rolling it back up, I set it on top of my dresser before I remembered to take off my belt as well, stowing it and my lightning saber away safely. After a minute's thought I tore the sheets of the boy's cot, too. It'd be a waste of a shower if he had to lie in filth again. Luckily I had spares in my closet, so I pulled those down and sloppily made the cot back up, deeming harder to make a cot than a bed. Once all was said and done, I nodded to myself. What kind of prisoner gets this kind of treatment? Surely he'd be at least somewhat swayed by my hospitality.

A few minutes later, after I had sat myself down at the desk to read over a few things, I heard the boy emerge from the bathroom behind me. Turning around, I saw that my assumption had been correct; he and I were more or less the same size, my clothes somewhat baggy but sufficient on him. His hair was flat for once, but cleaner than I'd ever seen it, and he looked overall a good deal better than he had prior. He looked like he had something to say, but just blinked a bit and went to sit on my bed. Again.

I turned back to my reading. "What is it? You look like you've got something to say."

I heard the bed creak as he shifted around. "I was going to ask for bandages, but..." he trailed off. "I don't really need them."

A smile played on my lips for some reason. "Indeed. That's pigmask medicine for you. It does wonders."

"It's like they used a delayed healing spell," he whispered, perhaps not having meant for me to hear. Assuming this to be the case, I said nothing in response, deciding to finish reading before I did anything else.

He stayed quiet until I was done, a full thirty minutes later. When I stretched out against the back of my chair, I heard him mumble something, but the noise said chair overrode his voice. I turned around a bit to face him. "Hm?"

He looked embarrassed again. Why this threatened to make me smile every time, I couldn't even begin to explain. "'m sorry," he said quickly, making it a point to avoid my gaze.

Before I knew it I was laughing at him, genuine mirth resounding through the air around me. The action was foreign and yet familiar; I'd never really done it before...but it felt so natural. This whole situation was just getting weirder and weirder. Why did I feel so...at ease with him, this boy whom up until recently I've been trying to one up and more or less destroy? When I'd brought my head back up to look at the blonde again, he was frowning at me intensely. I had to stifle another bout. "Sorry? What for?"

He looked like he wasn't going to dignify me with an answer, but he opened his mouth anyway. "For...for being so childish yesterday."

I blinked a couple of times, the smile hidden under my neutral facade fading away. "..let me get this straight. I knock your friends out cold, best you in battle, _kidnap_ you, forbid your leave, and _you're_ apologizing to _me_?" I paused, letting my words sink into the nascent silence. He said nothing to dispute me, looking at my socked feet. I shook my head, a few chuckles escaping despite my efforts to swat them away. "You're way too nice for your own good, kid."

He did something then, catching my gaze. He looked straight at me now, into the only eye of mine he could clearly make out, so intently; it was like he could read me like a book. "And you're not as cold-hearted as you think you are," he refuted simply, leaning back a bit. "You remind me of someone. He tried to appear tough on the outside, but he was really one of the nicest people I'd ever known." His eyes were misty now, almost nostalgic, like he'd told me some important piece of his past. "You're a good person."

My eyes narrowed. Like he would know anything. What was he, anyway? Trapped, that's what. Yet he had the gall to talk to me like he was an old friend of mine, like he _knew_ me. "If you knew what I've done in the past, you wouldn't be saying things like that," I replied rather coldly, standing up from where I sat. "Don't talk like you know."

He merely closed his eyes. "It's just that you're easily convinced," he continued, speaking slowly, like he was reading me somehow. "You feel like it's your duty, right? You don't really care, that's all. You're here, so you figure you'll go along with it. Isn't that so?"

I looked at him, even as he opened his eyes. "You sound so sure of yourself," I said, plainly, almost mechanically. I was, for the first time, intimidated. He'd managed to hit the nail right on the head somehow. Not that I would admit that. "I suggest you keep your thoughts to yourself. My bad side is not a place you want to be."

I walked away from him without a second thought. I didn't want to acknowledge his words. I needed to clear my head before those thoughts manifested into sheer chaos, like things had been three years ago. Even when he asked me where I was going, I simply ignored him, his voice, in favor of the silence of the hallway. Questioning things just made everything complicated and frustrating. Its not like anything would be explained to me if I asked. No, believing in King P was the only option I could afford to think about. It'd been that way for years. It would not change.

I continued down the hallway, shaking my head visibly.

_-asdfjkl;-_

Three hours later, the door to my quarters slid open once more to allow me entry. Unlike last time, however, my prisoner lay asleep on his cot. I had half-expected some kind of rebellious act, but this was interesting too.

Walking quietly in, I had no need to shed my jacket or kick my boots off; in my haste to leave, I had forgotten these items of clothing. But as a commander, people don't give you funny looks for things like this, much less point them out. So I hadn't noticed until I was about halfway through with my dinner. It was a good thing I didn't quite care for what people thought of me.

A brown paper bag in my hand, I approached my desk, a little ways away from which lay the boy's occupied cot. I noticed one of my books lying open; he must've been reading it. I hadn't so much as looked at that book in years. Setting the bag down, I shook the boy in an attempt to rouse him from his slumber. "Hey. Wake up."

He groaned, once rather peaceful face furrowing into a drowsy frown. "What? I was _sleeping_," he supplied unhelpfully, elongating the last word like a child would complain to their mother.

I rolled my eyes. "I brought you food. But if you'd rather sleep some more, please, by all means—"

I was cut off by his sitting up and sniffing the air, now almost fully awake. "Food?"

I nodded toward the bag. "A burger."

And then he was eating it. The climbing off the cot, the scampering over to the desk, the opening of the bag, and the unwrapping of the burger were all but missed in the blink of my eyes. He took the biggest bites I'd ever seen, wolfing the thing down faster than Fassad could devour his beloved bananas. He was done in a minute and thirty seconds, licking his lips and stifling a burp with his fist. His gaze met mine and he—dare I even think it—_smiled_ at me. "Thank you.

I swallowed and waved his thanks away. "It's not like I can let a hostage starve to death, you know," I reasoned, turning back to my desk to throw away the trash. "Quit being so...friendly."

The boy grinned at me; I could feel it on my back. "I can't help it. You're too nice."

"I'm not...nice."

"Yes you are."

I turned to face him, bag crumpled in my hand. "I'm your damn captor. You think I'm _nice_?"

He nodded, face serious. "Yes. I think that you have a good heart; you've just been brainwashed into thinking otherwise. Right?"

Oh no. The confusing thoughts again. "No. Just...stop. You don't know."

"But you've—"

I shot him a warning look. "Seriously, shut up."

My expression must've been quite a sight, because he shut his mouth almost instantly. He still looked at me, though. I didn't like that, the fact that he could see right through me. Could everyone else do it too? Quickly I took two steps to deposit the waste I still held in the trash can next to me desk, no longer willing to meet his eyes. From there we just kind of stood there in the silence for a long time. I didn't have anything to say, and he wasn't allowed to.

Eventually I just sighed and sat at the desk, closing the book the boy had been reading without marking the page. Instantly I felt a twinge of guilt, thinking maybe to go back and mark it, but then I stopped. That was it. That was goodnatured-ness. Since I didn't interact with anyone else for more than five minutes at a time, it wasn't really a noticeable issue. But it was definitely there. Was I..._soft_?

"There's something bothering me," the boy finally spoke again, now from his cot, where he'd laid back down during the drought of conversation.

"What? That I'm too nice?" I suggested, a little coldly. But I didn't feel bad about that coldness. _Progress_.

He chose not to answer that. "Your name," he said instead. "I don't know what it is."

"What a coincidence. I don't know yours either."

Silence. "Well, I'm Lucas," he supplied after realizing that I wasn't going to go any further.

More silence. I blinked a few times, then turned to look at his lying form. _Lucas_. That name. It seemed..._familiar_, somehow. "Lucas, huh? I'll keep that in mind."

He _hmm'd_. "What's yours?"

I paused. Now, as crazy as it might've sounded, I had no idea what my name was. King P always called me his 'little puppet,' and everyone else just called me Commander. So I really had little need for a name. "...I don't know."

Lucas paused. "Wait. You don't know your own name?" he asked incredulously, like it was the craziest thing he'd ever heard.

I frowned. "No, I don't. You can call me Commander, like everyone else does. Or do you prefer Master, my dear prisoner?"

He nearly laughed. "I think I'll pass," he replied. A long moment passed as he lay thinking and I sat brooding. "Well, since you don't have one, can I...give you one?"

I looked at him. "What am I, a pet rabbit?"

Now he actually laughed. "I'm serious! It'd be nice to have a name, right?"

I doubted the practicality of it, but seeing as how everyone else had one that wasn't chosen by them, I threw reason to the wind. "Alright then, Lucas, let's hear it."

"...Claus."

My eyes widened. _Claus_. That was even more familiar, somehow. It triggered something, somewhere in my mind, but I didn't know what it was. Claus...well, it had a nice ring to it. Plus, besides the weird déjà vu feeling, I'd never heard it before. Unique. Much like myself. "It's...it's not bad."

Lucas sounded far away when he answered. "Yeah...not bad."

As I sat there, wondering just why in the world 'Claus' made my mind reel like it did, time apparently flew by. When I had finally decided to just stop thinking and leave it be, Lucas' breath was all but gone, slow and steady in the background. I looked over to see his face to one side, eyes closed and face calm. I watched him for a moment before closing my own eyes.

"G'night, Lucas."

—**e**—**n**—**d**—**c**—**h**—**a**—**p**—**t**—**e**—**r** —

_**A/N: Alright. I'm totally unsure about this chapter...afraid you guys are gonna hate it. Is Claus (I MEAN COMMANDER SIR) too...nice? I just, I mean, it's like, he's all...I dunno. I don't know. He's just kind at heart is all. Y'know? **__Y'know__**? D': And is Lucas too trusting? Wahhh, I feel like I'm getting characterization all wrong and fucking everything up and just KFFF—**_

_**And thank you for putting up with my lame update schedule (LOL schedule. What's a schedule?). I can't promise I'll be better about it, but I will try my darnedest. That's what counts, right?**_

_**Anyway, reviews are appreciated. If I failed, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TELL ME. Can't fix it if I don't know. I just...can't write a mean, sadistic Claus. Just emotionless or pseudo-emotionless. D:**_

_**Thanks and g'bye. C':**_


	4. The Blonde Boy is Special

_**A/N: THIS CHAPTER NEEDS MORE LUCAS. But too bad. Thanks for the reviews, by the way. :'D**_

_**WARNINGS**__**: Naked Claus (:'O), weird dreams (if you can guess what it's from I'll give you a cookie -shot-), talk of homosexual-ness.**_

_**DISCLAIMER**__**: -gigglesnort-**_

—**s—t—a—r—t—c**—**h**—**a**—**p**—**t—e**—**r—**

_I took a fistful of his soaked shirt and shook him roughly, ignoring the guilt that rose up within me at the sight of his tears. "Don't you get it? Don't you _understand_? She's not coming back. _Ever_." I was growling, not so much consumed by anger at him than I was frustration and sorrow at fate, at the world, at everything. My clothes clung to me and I could hardly breathe after what had just happened._

_The boy I tried so hard to protect and keep happy sniffled, his expression both anguished and fearful (of me, I had little doubt). "B-but," he continued to question me, to refuse to accept what I had to tell him, the truth. "She t-told us she'd be right b-behind us..."_

_"She was trying to keep us calm, you idiot," I hissed back, pulling him away from the river and toward a big tree, hoping to get us out of the chilly wind's reach. "She saved our lives by sacrificing hers." Now my eyes were beginning to sting. Why couldn't I have helped her, instead of freezing up like a useless wimp?_

_I heard him gasp behind me, his breathing already ragged from our combined attempts to keep from drowning in the current. "Y-y-you mean sh-she's..." he trailed off, unable to voice his assumption for fear of it—God forbid—actually being correct._

_My voice was hard and cold when I decided to reply. "Yes. She's dead." I was so tired. I couldn't keep going like this for much longer._

_I heard nothing but silence as I forced myself to walk around the tree, searching for the warmest possible spot. Once determined, I didn't have to tell myself twice to sit down; I practically collapsed, head leaning back against the tree's trunk. I had managed to pull him down with me, but he was shaking. Assuming this was attributed to more than one cause, I pulled him close, trying to pool our warmth together to insulate us as best as possible. "She's gone," he whispered into my chest. "We left her there to die."_

_I ran my own slightly-shaking fingers through his wet hair, trying and failing to calm him down. "If we hadn't jumped when she told us, we'd have died too. What were we supposed to do?"_

_"Pull her with us," he choked, finally succumbing to his tears. "We sh-should've pulled her w-with us."_

_Hearing it come from him, the way we could have saved her had we not been so scared, I had no reply. So I did the only thing I could manage to do: cry silently. He didn't need to know. The only thing his sobbing form could feel was my gentle, protective hold on him. I had to be strong. But I couldn't. So the least I could do was pretend. Thus we sat there, in the dark and stormy night, weeping together, mourning her loss and unable to fathom any of this being real. How would we face anyone in town ever again? I was praying. Praying that this wasn't reality, that it was just some cruel joke or awful nightmare._

_I heard some rustling near us some time later, but I was too tired. He had gone limp in my arms and in a moment I followed suit, the world going black around me.  
><em>  
>I opened my eyes to darkness, breathing a bit heavier than I should have been. Sitting up slowly, I raised my hand to my head, rubbing my face with a sigh. Again with the weird dreams.<p>

I'd been having them lately, for no apparent reason. They were almost like memories, except they weren't mine. I wasn't sure who the people in the dreams were, but I could tell they were the same people every time, like a recurring theme. They'd started out light-hearted enough, but recently had turned into darker (and in this most recent case, tragic) retrospectives. I didn't particularly like them, one because they confused me and two because they had been putting me in less than happy moods from the get-go. Not a great way to start off the day.

I pulled myself out of bed and sidled on over to my dresser, beginning to dress myself for the day. It was an off day for me, but I still had to go get food and what not. It was also the day I had my monthly maintenance routine scheduled.

Once I had my uniform on, I went to reach for my helmet, which lay on my bedside table. It was part of my identity, really; it made me mysterious, and therefore more intriguing. Only a select few people had ever seen me without it on. Carrying it by my side, I went to retrieve a few papers from my desk, and on my way my gaze wandered over to the sleeping from laying not a couple meters beside it. The Lucas boy had been with me now for almost two weeks, and I had yet to make any sort of valid progress with him. He was surprisingly stubborn, and ever since I'd revealed myself to be..._nice_ (even I couldn't deny it anymore), he refused to be intimidated or swayed by anything I did or said.

But his progress on me was a different story entirely. No matter how many times I told him to shut his mouth, he kept assaulting me with things like how bad of a man King P was or why I stuck by him like I did, I was much too nice a person for that. It's not as if I had ever trusted the man to begin with, but Lucas was actually beginning to make me doubt King P's intentions. When he talked from his point of view, things just didn't really make sense, and the guy really _did_ seem like a threat. I could never come up with anything to retort with.

And as if I wasn't bad enough to begin with, I'd been growing steadily nicer. Not only did I let him bunk with me (in the same room), I let him do pretty much anything he wanted. If someone were to come in and watch us interact, one might think we were friends. No, I wasn't exaggerating. But I couldn't help it. He was intelligent; we could hold meaningful conversations, unlike the vast majority of my subordinates. And be civil to one another, unlike I could with Fassad. He helped out sometimes by cleaning the room up while I was away. He was kind; how I had ever managed to strike him down those times before, I couldn't really know. He made me smile much too often for comfort, but I didn't actually mind it all that much. Sometimes I would worry over whether I was growing too fond of the boy's company, but then I'd remember that this was the very first time I'd gotten to know someone whom I considered to be on my own level. I assumed it was like that with all acquaintances (I was still a bit hesitant to use the word friend, though that was probably what we were…at least, I assumed. This was the first time I'd gotten particularly close to anyone prior. Maybe it was something more? Who knew).

Shaking my head, I grabbed the papers and slid my helmet on, getting ready to walk to the door and leave for the morning. However, before that I pulled the covers back over Lucas' snoozing torso, admiring how he could sleep so well and so late. _See, there it is with the friendly and the goodie goodie and just __**guh**_. But if I was completely honest with myself, I didn't care. Lucas had become special to me. Whether that was a horrible decision or not, I would come to find out later.

Zipping up my jacket, I left the room quietly.  
><em><br>-asdfjkl;-_

"Arms up."

I did as I was told, lifting both arms high into the air. Not like it was a foreign command, anyway. Dr. Andonuts circled me, scanning my torso for any signs of damage or irregularities. He poked me here and there sometimes, and I couldn't really tell whether he wanted a reaction or not, but he scribbled things down anyway. As far as I could tell, I was fine. My skin was quite pale, but that was because I wore my jacket around everywhere, even in the hot sun. But of course Andonuts insisted on these checkups. It had been once a week, initially, but through constant reassurances I was able to persuade him to cut it down to once a month.

Now he ordered me to stand up so he could do the same to my lower half. The hard tiled floor of the infirmary was cold, but I managed somehow, the doctor hovering around me like a bee. One check, two checks, fifteen checks, thirty checks until at last he was done. When he gave me the okay, I began putting my clothes back on.

"In perfect condition once again, Commander," Andonuts praised me, putting his pen in his breast pocket and regarding me fondly as I pulled my pants on. "A healthy fifteen year old body."

His use of 'Commander' was rather off-putting, after having gotten so used to Lucas' 'Claus' over the time he'd been there. I nodded back. "Indeed, and it's all thanks to you, doctor," I replied. This man was one of very few who genuinely cared about me, whether it be because I was (and still is) one of his most prized creations or not. As such, I trusted him. He used to be the only one.

He laughed heartily, his white mustache and goatee separating as he did so. "No need to flatter me, my boy! Now, lay down and we'll start mechanical maintenance, eh?" he suggested, and I obliged. Sitting down first, all I had to do was make a ninety degree turn and lean back a bit to meet the raised part of the chair. He stood to my right, where my cannon arm lay on the armrest, and plugged a few cords into it before turning the machine next to me on.

I sighed and shifted around a bit, to get comfortable; this part of the process usually took half an hour, maybe more. Through the machine he accessed all the data and programs in my arm as well as my mechanical eye, ensuring that they all worked fine before backing all the data up in case of some kind of crash. Seeing as how the eye's programs were integrated into my brain, a crash would probably result in a black out or a coma, neither of which were nice options, but Andonuts hadn't ever let me down before.

He began tapping away at the buttons, initializing the system. "So, how have you been holding up thus far, Commander?"

I shrugged my left shoulder out of habit, even though the man couldn't see it. "Oh, I've been fine." As if to undermine the statement, I yawned involuntarily.

He chuckled at me. "Sleep problems?"

I stifled a second yawn. "Nothing that I can't handle, doctor," I replied, a bit more coldly than I had meant.

He _hmm'd_, but did not pursue the topic any further.

So we sat there in a long but comfortable silence. Andonuts wasn't really a talkative guy unless asked about some kind of scientific something or other, and I just wasn't a talker to begin with, unless someone else initiated the conversation. I was tempted to doze to the almost rhythmic hum of the machine, but sleep didn't usually come that easily. So I sat there, idly stretching and cracking my fingers until I decided to ask the man something a bit unorthodox.

"Doctor," I began before I could convince myself asking wasn't a good idea.

"Yes, my boy?" he answered rather quickly, apparently able to talk and type simultaneously.

"Could you explain to me what love is?"

Andonuts kept typing for a moment before leaning forward to look at me almost curiously. "Commander, I've already explained to you a human's basic emotions—"

"I know," I cut him off, waving my hand around. "I meant, what you believe love to be. What it means to you, because you yourself said that all emotions are interpreted differently by each person who experiences it."

The man's expression turned thoughtful as he returned to his upright state, typing once again. "I see. Well, I would say love is when you...understand someone. When you enjoy their company, want to be around them, want to protect them, and legitimately care about them." He then chuckled. "Was that a bit too sappy?"

I smiled. "No, not at all. Thank you."

"Of course."

It was silent for a couple more minutes, as I processed what he said. It seemed there was more to love than simply being attracted to someone. Which was the conclusion I had originally come to, but I'd had very limited experience with that. Enjoying company, wanting to protect, genuinely caring. Hmm.

"Another question if I may, doctor."

"By all means."

"Is it only with the opposite sex that feelings like this can exist for?"

He looked at me again, with a strange expression. I felt compelled to restate the question. "What I mean to say is, the term love is obviously used for family as well, but outside of that, it is only females that males feel this way for?"

He took a much longer time to come up with an answer this time around. "I assume that you're speaking of a romantic love, as opposed to a platonic, family-like love," he began.

"Precisely," I confirmed. _Romantic_, that was the word.

He sighed. "Well, in that case, yes, you're correct: men usually fall in love with women, as per the natural was of things, a la reproduction. That isn't to say a romantic love between two men or two women is unheard of...but it is generally frowned upon."

I listened to him speak with my eyes closed. "I see," I said, once I realized he was finished speaking. "Frowned upon as in, illegal?"

Andonuts sighed again. "I don't believe so, Commander, but it's like an unspoken rule of sorts." He looked at me again. "Why do you ask?"

I opened my eyes once more, halfway, and stared up at the ceiling. "Merely curious, sir."

It was a few minutes later before Andonuts decided to voice a question that had probably been weighing on his mind since I'd spoken last, due to the slightly uncomfortable silence. "Would this have anything to do with that prisoner of yours, Commander?" he asked quietly, still typing a bit.

I was silent for a moment, debating on whether or not to tell him the truth. "What would you say if I said yes?" I answered his question with another question, looking forward to his reaction.

Andonuts gave him a look of alarm. "Commander?"

I looked him straight in the eye for a good ten seconds before I couldn't hold it in any longer. I began to laugh, and his expression faded to a look of relief. "Your reaction was priceless," I told him when I forced the chuckles away. But my expression turned serious once more. "In all seriousness, doctor, I feel like I can trust you. So I'll tell you the truth. I think that may be what's happening, honestly. I just can't imagine being _mean_ to him. I don't usually particularly want to leave him and I really do enjoy his company. He...he's special."

Andonuts had walked away from the machine now, and approached me, listening with an unreadable expression. I assumed he was trying to hide it for my sake. "Are you sure that it isn't just friendship?" he asked, seeming to have completely abandoned the notion that Lucas had even been a prisoner at all. He was genuinely trying to help me, and I appreciated that more than he knew.

I shrugged. "I don't know."

Andonuts frowned. "Well, think of it like this. Do you feel attracted to him?"

I thought about it honestly. I'd never really thought about it any prior. "I guess he's pretty attractive."

The doctor raised an eyebrow. "What is that supposed to mean? It's a yes or no question."

"Well, I suppose so. It had never really occurred to me that he was cute or handsome or anything before, but I could imagine finding his physical features to be decently—"

He sighed. "Okay, okay. How about this, then—would you consider spending the rest of your life with him?"

I blinked a few times. "Yes."

His eyes widened a bit. "Really?"

"Indeed." And it was true. The time I'd spent with Lucas, I'd felt more comfortable and at peace with myself than I ever had prior. The thought of spending life with him in lieu of his commandeering of the Pigmask Army, even as a good friend, was an appealing one. That's just the kind of effect he had on me, I guessed. That and the Pigmask Army was kind of lame.

The man adjusted his glasses. "...I see."

I looked away. "Sorry if that disappoints you in any way. Almost perfect, right? Damn emotions."

I was a bit taken aback to feel his hand on my shoulder. I looked back at him to see a smile. "Perfect? My boy, my intent with you was never to create a perfect being. Merely to save a life that would have been otherwise unjustly lost."

His words, though they might not have been entirely true, made me feel better. I smiled back at him. "Thank you."_ For everything._

"Besides, it is no concern of mine what you decided to do with your personal life," he continued, walking back to the machine. "I'm just a doctor. The higher-ups can deal with things like prisoners and soldiers and needles and whatnot." I smiled, _genuinely_, in his general direction; my secret would be safe with him.

When he took the cables out of my cannon arm, the only thing left to check was the mechanical pack attached to my jacket, which was in pristine condition as well. So as I put my shirt and jacket back on, he wrote down the results of my full inspection. "A perfect checkup. Congratulations, Commander."

"Thank you, doctor. For everything."

He laughed. "Anytime." And on that note, I left the infirmary a bit tired and quite hungry but in a relatively good mood; better than I'd felt before I'd arrived.

I decided to stop by the cafeteria to get something for both me and Lucas to munch on.

—**e**—**n**—**d**—**c**—**h**—**a**—**p**—**t**—**e**—**r** —

_**A/N: I don't even know what to say. I'm going really really fast. I just...-sigh- I don't wanna spend the time building up, dammit. So I took the cheap way out and time skipped. I'm a whore. I'm sorry. And the characterization STILL FEELS A BIT OFF AGHH—**_

_**But I like Andonuts. He's cool people. :D**_

_**This arc of the fic will probably take another 2-4 chapters. "**__What, arcs? Luke, what the hell're you talking about__**." Well, there's actually gonna be plot! Yaaay! And then I'm not sure if I'll split the latter part of the fic into more than one arc, but it'll probably be longer than the first arc. So, uhm, yeah. Let's hope this doesn't become the next Protector (which I'm working on, btw;;).**_

_**Okayso, feel free to leave reviews. I love 'em. You can flame too, if ya want. I don't really mind.**_

_**Muchas gracias y hasta luego!**_


	5. The Masked Man is in Love

**_A/N: I don't much like first person. So many accidental "Lucas blanked at him blankly" moments. Also, new (long overdue amirite) chapter. Sweet._**

**_WARNINGS: boy on boy LOVEing, etc. etc._**

**_DISCLAIMER: Can I just exempt myself from all further disclaimers? I own nothing. NOTHING._**

**_—s—t—a—r—t—c—h—a—p—t—e—r—_**

I shut the book I had been reading, eyes beginning to sting from the effort. Instead of that, I took to massaging my temples, trying to alleviate the pain that had started before it got any worse. I'd been reading for quite some time, but if asked to relay the information I'd just gone over, I would've had quite a bit of trouble.

Part of me wanted to sleep the sting off, but I had been sleeping the day away a lot lately, and as such was trying to stop developing those kinds of bad habits. It didn't help that I was always bored, with nothing to do but read or maybe write. But I'd never been good at writing. I cleaned up the room sometimes, when the boredom became serious, but it only ever seemed to occupy me for a short time. Really. You'd think he'd have something to do in here besides reading. Of course, that's all he ever seemed to do with his spare time anyway.

The Masked Man was kind of strange. I know I'd dubbed him 'Claus' a few weeks ago, right after he'd kidnapped me, but I tried to refrain from calling him that too often, for in hindsight I wasn't sure how Claus (my Claus) would react to having his name used to refer to a "villain." That's another thing I didn't quite believe; the Masked Man, while he'd bested me twice in combat and done questionable things and killed people and kidnapped me, was not a bad person. I could see it in his eye. There wasn't the look of a killer or a sadist. Only the blankness of one who wasn't sure of what his purpose was, of why he was even here at all.

And even though he'd definitely kidnapped me and made his plan to interrogate and maybe even brainwash me very clear, I wasn't treated like a prisoner in any traditional sense. I slept in the flimsy cot next to his desk casually, unrestrained, almost like a houseguest. Although I wasn't ever let out of his room, I could go anywhere within it. It was a very weird kind of situation indeed, but served to make me forget that I wasn't even supposed to be there at all.

Standing up to stretch and listening to my back pop multiple times as a result, I retreated to Claus' bed instead, the comfiest piece of furniture in the room (though even that made it sound more comfy than it actually was). Settling on the comforter I had smoothed out myself just an hour ago, I flopped down on my back, lamenting the fact that I couldn't use my PSI to blast my way out of this mothership. Damn scientists and their technology.

As if on cue, the door slid open seemingly of it's own accord before a familiar helmet-clad commander stepped across the threshold with a white paper bag in his hands. I sat up in an instant. "Food?" I asked, though it was a rather silly question; the grease stains were easily visible from where I lay.

He wasted no time in kicking his boots off. "Yes. Burgers. Again." He shook his head. "You'd think they'd be able to cook something besides these greasy things."

I bounced as the Masked Man flopped onto the bed roughly. "I thought you really liked burgers?"

He scoffed, rummaging around in the bag with his single good arm. "Well, what if you had an omelette every day? Wouldn't that make you like them a little less?"

I chuckled, impressed that he could remember something I'd mentioned fleetingly a week ago. "I guess you've got a point."

A foil-wrapped mass was held out to me. "Anyway, here. Eat."

"Thanks."

We sat there for a while, saying nothing as we took bite after bite of our respective burgers. I liked mine with everything on it_—_onions, lettuce, tomato, the works_—_but Claus' tastes were a bit more refined, having only the basic cheese and mustard atop his patty. It was a comfy silence, but I was rather curious. "So...how'd it go?"

His arm stopped halfway to his mouth, and he slowly set it back down as his expression fell into carefully calculated neutrality. "Fine. One hundred percent functional as always." He then resumed his previous action. "Sometimes I wonder why he bothers with the inspections."

I didn't respond. The word inspection had me wondering what exactly he looked like_—_despite having been in the same room for two and a half weeks, I'd never seen him sans his helmet once. Normally I'd dismiss it as him being self-conscious, but that didn't seem to fit his terse, no-nonsense attitude. "Better to be safe than sorry."

"I suppose."

From there, the silence became different, as if it was slowly charging with an unknown force. Claus regarded me with a look of mild realization, like he was just taking notice of me for the first time. Finishing my burger under his gaze proved to be a bit more difficult than it should have been. Eventually I tightened my fists, crumpling the foil loudly and catching his eye. "What's with that look?"

He didn't look fazed in the slightest; in fact, he seemed to stare even more than before, giving me a once over. "It's just...you're rather attractive."

I blinked. That hadn't been the answer I'd expected. "Oh. Well, uh, thanks."

The ghost of a smile flitted by his lips. "You took that in stride."

Tempted as I was to laugh, I managed to restrain myself. "Did you expect me to get all flustered?" I asked, leaning back a bit. "Coming from you, I can't imagine that having been a joke."

He crossed his arms. "Flustered? No. But your reactions are usually a bit more interesting."

"Sorry."

The nascent pause had me feeling a little anxious about what the commander might say next, considering his previous observation. No one had ever said something like that to me before. I wasn't sure what to think of it, especially coming from someone like him. Perhaps it was just an unimportant side comment, to be thrown away and forgotten and never spoken of again.

"Alright then. What if I told you that I loved you?"

And then perhaps not.

Slowly my head turned seemingly of its own accord, my eyes no doubt double their usual size. How to reply? Was this just a twisted kind of game now, done in an attempt to coax a more favorable response out of me?

As my mind reeled, he seemed to feel the need to clarify. "My definition of love might be a little different than yours; I don't lust. I don't admire. I simply...love. Care, if you will. For the first time in my brief sort-of life." Our eyes met as I struggled to digest this. "You're special to me."

I felt my face color despite myself. The unobstructed eye was ablaze with more emotion than I'd ever seen the commander possess in all the time I'd been held hostage. It made my heart beat strangely. I found myself itching to hug him, to touch him in some way to confirm his claim. I found myself feeling those little inklings of love as well.

And that scared me.

My arms found his back as I pulled him close, barely thinking, just craving his touch abruptly. His body tensed a bit, like he was unsure of what to do before attempting to mirror my action, patting my back almost awkwardly with his good hand. "Lucas," he began, and the sound of my name in his mouth made me feel tingly. "What does this mean?"

I clung tighter. What was I _doing_? Why was I feeling this? Like I had known him far longer than I actually had, like I would die if I let go? "This means I love you too, Claus," I said simply, for once not seeing a dead boy's form as a result; all I could see was the commander.

He sighed after a while in what I assumed was a relief-like emotion. "Well, good."

I found myself chuckling. "What, did you think I'd violently reject you?"

The commander shrugged his shoulders a bit. "Not exactly, but from what I gather, relations like this between the same sex aren't exactly smiled upon."

"Ah." It was around then that the doubt started to ebb forth. "You've gathered correctly, then, but it doesn't really bother me."

"I see." He made no move to break our connection, but I could feel his content. Slowly I let go of him, instead settling back a few inches from him, looking at him directly now. "So you've never liked women."

I turned my gaze to the plain bedding. "That's not exactly it." I'd had my fair share of crushes on the girls in town. "More like...Stockholm Syndrome." My laugh was a little forced; it was almost _not_ funny because of its truth.

His expression was one of skepticism, but he didn't press the issue. Instead, he blinked a few times. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't things like _that_," he gestured with his hand at the space between us, "usually followed by some kind of physical manifestation of passion?"

It took me a minute to realize that he meant he expected a kiss after our not-so-romantic mutual confessions. I brought my arms up into a fold on my chest and frowned at him. "You pervert," I huffed. "I would never kiss someone on the first date."

He appeared to seriously mull this over despite my clearly jocular tone. "Date? This?" He took his forgotten burger foil, wadded it into a ball and threw it at the wastebasket across the room, missing by mere centimeters. "I thought human courting ceremonies were a little more...extravagant."

I ignored the fact that he was more preoccupied with this than my allegation of his perversion. "They can be, for sure. But this is fine." It served its purpose, anyway.

But he was stern. "No, no. I'd like to do it by human standards. This isn't good enough."

I laughed. "Whatever you say. Either way you're not getting a kiss today, sir."

My giggles only intensified as he did his best to pout at me, resulting in an awkward-looking scowl.

"...how does this even happen."

I stopped just as abruptly as he had changed in demeanor. "Hmm?"

He looked away from me and towards the wall, limiting my view of his face. "You are my captive. You're here against your will. I...don't understand."

The smile on my face faded. He felt indeed as conflicted as I on the inside, if not more so. Who in their right mind would fall for their captor, and by the same token, what kind of captor would develop feelings for their captive? It was an anomaly. A fantasy, a story meant only for entertainment and not for playing out in the midst of an all-out war.

I shook my head. "I don't get it either," I responded, feeling it unnecessary to feign my own understanding. "But at this point I don't think it matters." I grabbed his hand with mine, flinching and all, holding it firmly. Reassuringly. "It'll be okay somehow."

He took a deep breath before he nodded minutely at my obvious lie, because how could _this_ possibly turn out to be okay in any scenario?, and murmured mysteriously, "I'll do my best."

**_—e—n—d—c—h—a—p—t—e—r —_**

**_A/N: ...I can't believe it's been over a year._**

**_Where do I even begin. You'll have to trust me when I say I'm sorry for abandoning everything related to fanfiction for so long. I haven't felt the will to write in such a long time. That being said, I think I'm feeling it, you guys. I cannot promise timely updates, nor can I promise you I'll finish this story entirely. But I'll do my goddamn best._**

**_Look out, Protector. I'm comin' for you next._**

**_Oh, and thanks for reading. Much love._**


	6. The Blonde Boy has a Secret

**_A/N: I know I know I knowwwww I said I'd write Protector next but aghhhh that one requires more effort and a specific state of mind which I cannot replicate at the moment...but I don't wanna waste this sudden spurt of will so HERE TAKE MY CAPTIVITY CHAPTER OKAY HAPPY EARLY CHRISTMAS_**

**_This chapter is one I've envisioned since I got the idea for this fic. Hopefully it'll turn out._**

**_WARNINGS: BL, plot twists, shower scene (...don't look so excited.), Lucas being selfish, etc. etc._**

**_DISCLAIMER: See last chapter's. And the chapter before that. And... (insert unfunny loop here.)_**

**_—s—t—a—r—t—c—h—a—p—t—e—r—_**

I suppose it wasn't fair of me to be upset with him.

He had as much of a right as anyone to keep information to himself, considering the situation. I had just...thought that maybe we were...closer than that. Closer than simply captive and captor, than simply boy and cyborg. Close enough to entrust each other with secrets, with the truth, no matter what might happen. Perhaps that was just naive thinking on my part. Perhaps humans weren't so predictable as I'd previously assumed.

A little over an hour ago I had returned from my normal duties as commander of the Pigmask Army, sweaty and in a less than stellar mood thanks to snarky new recruits and the subsequent slacking of their commanding officers. Lucas, of course, sat waiting for me on the bed, giving me a smile as I discarded my boots and glove on the dresser near the door. "Welcome back," he greeted, rather upbeat for having been locked away in a semi-cramped room all day.

My response was gruff and succinct. "Mm."

It was apparent he could tell things were amiss. "Something wrong?" he asked me as I strode past him towards my desk, intent on recording the names of the ingrates whom had acted out of line in front of me before they slipped my mind. ...not that they would, but to make doubly sure.

"Stupid people is all."

I could hear his huff of momentary laughter behind me as I scrawled in an official binder their reports. "I'd have thought you'd been used to that already."

"I could be around them all the damn time," I flipped the cover shut none too subtly, turning around to face him directly, "and they'd still make me angry. Exposure is no excuse."

His expression was one of mild understanding, like he could sympathize. "That's true."

The space between us might as well have been visibly crackling with electricity, the way we considered each other after that. Regardless of our mutual caring for one another, neither of us had ever had to deal with or initiate this particular sort of interpersonal interaction before. It was, for lack of a better term...awkward.

I decided I'd take the easy way out. "I'm going to take a shower." Normally I took showers late at night, long after Lucas had settled himself into bed, so his mildly surprised expression was justified.

"Ah...okay." His voice sounded both relieved and a tad disappointed. "Guess you could use some freshening up."

My eyebrow raised. "Implying?"

He made a face, even raising a hand to plug his nose. "You stink!"

I rolled my eyes, knowing that with most of my sweat glands being disabled the chances of me truly smelling unpleasant were low. "Right. Allow me to remedy the situation."

He flopped back onto the bed as I yanked the drawers housing my spare clothing open. "...don't feel obligated on my account, Claus."

The sparseness with which he used that name never failed to catch me off-guard. I didn't respond, instead focusing on shutting the drawers soundlessly, casual wear in hand. He made no further effort to communicate with me on my way to the quarter's only adjacent room, so I closed the door behind me quickly.

The bathroom was small, but it did what it was meant to do—enable one to bathe. Although usually I wasted no time in getting in and getting out clean, I found myself in no big rush to get back out to Lucas. Slowly I unzipped my jacket, shrugging it off my shoulders before hanging it upon the sleek metallic door. Turning the knob that controlled the shower's water supply proved to be a bit more time-consuming today than in times previous.

The mood between us had definitely shifted since we'd clarified our relationship a few nights ago. We acted more or less the same way, but everything felt...forced. It was clear neither of us knew what we were supposed to be doing. As I peeled my undershirt off my chest I wondered to myself why I cared. I had told myself that I didn't. Romance didn't even factor into what I felt for Lucas, right?

Leaving myself completely bare, I nodded at my reflection in the steamy mirror. It didn't, not in a big way. My feelings were more akin to respect and companionship; Lucas was primarily a social partner to me. I stepped into the semi-scalding shower of water resolutely. If anything was going to happen, it'd be Lucas who initiated it, not me.

Though, in the scenario which he did attempt something wanton in nature, would I respond?

I slathered shampoo unto my messy red hair roughly, tilting my head to the side to allow my left hand easier access. Though my cannon arm was waterproof, I didn't like the thought of getting it wet, and as such I made sure it was well out of the water's reach. While the suds sat there, I grabbed the slippery soap bar expertly and proceeded to give myself a quick scrub-down—it required a great deal of flexibility on my left arm's part, but it was all I knew. For all intents and purposes, I'd never had a functioning left arm. Keeping balance on one foot while washing the other had become second nature.

I stood still as the water cascaded down from above, washing away the soap and dirt and loose hair, leaving little but cleanliness in its wake. Sometimes I just liked to stand there for longer than necessary to completely rinse myself off. The rhythmic patters of droplets on my skin was rather soothing, even to a half-breed like me. But when the skin on my fingers began to wrinkle prematurely, it was most definitely time to get out.

Turning the knob back to its starting position in one deft flick of the wrist, I stepped carefully out of the shower onto a dangerously tiled floor. Toweling myself dry before slipping into clean clothes, I made sure my hair was as dry as possible without some corresponding electronic peripheral before grabbing my helmet. The helmet hair was always exceptionally bad if I left it wet, a lesson I'd learned the hard way.

Upon exiting the now-humid room, I was initially a bit confused as to where my blonde companion had gone; the bed was oddly empty, as was my desk. But a glance to the right revealed his form next to the room's lone circular window, gazing out into the sky we perpetually flew through.

I padded up behind him, examining our position. We were near the mountain's peak now, Nowhere Islands' highest point. Rather near Tazmily. The sun was setting somewhere to the west, leaving the sky an intricate shade of orange and pink. The stars were just beginning to twinkle at us.

"It's rather pretty," I observed dully, growing a bit unnerved by Lucas' lack of acknowledgement.

He didn't answer right away, instead pushing himself away from the thick glass a bit. "It's beautiful," he amended, head swiveling as his eyes took in the whole sight. "It always has been."

His words hit me in a way that I doubt he meant them to. He truly loved his homeland, from the way it looked to the way it treated him and right down to the way it had been there beside him since he was small. Everything about it, just the way it was. He hadn't been able to have been a part of it in what must have felt like ages, with this lone window offering him a view of that which had been taken away from him.

It was I who had done this to him. Threatened to destroy it and now taken it away, dangling it in front of his now-helpless face. My misgivings about the situation had been slowly growing ever since we'd named each other, but this was almost too much to consider. How could he have forgiven me for such a thing, to the point of professing mutual love? "...you're right."

He inhaled deeply before finally shifting his gaze, now focusing his attention on me. The look he gave me was one of clear affection before morphing into something akin to confusion. "Well? Feeling better now?"

I blinked, having anticipated an actual question to go along with his body language. "Yes, very much so. My foul mood is gone."

His lips twitched up into a familiar smile. "Good. When you're in a bad mood, you sulk and don't talk to me."

I gave him a mocking look. "What makes you think I'll talk to you now?"

The blonde laughed. "Well, you are right now, so that's gotta count for something."

"I could stop at any time I wanted."

"But you wouldn't."

The silence that followed was a sound victory for Lucas, as we both knew I'd inevitably end up humoring his inane amounts of small talk. I met his eyes solemnly, expecting the usual playful smugness that exuded from him when he won petty arguments. But I didn't see that so much as I saw a pleasant, meaningful gaze into my eye. It was unlike anything I'd previously seen on his face. It made little hairs on my neck stand on end in a reciprocal emotion I couldn't place a name to.

And then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine.

Now, I had been expecting something along these lines somewhere in the back of my psyche, to be sure. I wasn't dense. But the kiss was rather poorly executed; our noses were pressed together in a way that felt strange and he had slightly misjudged the distance between us, resulting in my bottom lip being caught between his in an off-centered mess. I was tempted to move, but hesitated out of fear of offending him somehow. Instead, he himself pulled back, face set with eyebrows pulled together into a thoughtful frown.

"...that was rather anti-climactic," I pointed out, watching him get steadily more flustered.

"Thanks for that, Captain Obvious." He stared at me accusingly, like the whole ordeal was my fault. "That was the first time I've ever done that."

I laughed a bit. "Really."

He didn't look particularly amused. "Besides, I'd have been fine if it wasn't for your stupid helmet," he huffed, motioning toward it. "It takes up so much of your face. And didn't you just take a shower? Why did you put it back on?"

I didn't answer, instead choosing to look away.

"Come to think of it," he continued, slowly converting his embarrassment into curiosity, "I've never seen you without it on. You...can't be self-conscious."

I snorted. "No, not really." I thought about this seriously for a moment. "It's just a habit, I guess. A symbol of my authority, if you will. I've always had it on, and it feels strange to take it off."

When I met his gaze again he looked semi-sympathetic. "Hmm."

I knew him well enough to see past his nonchalant response. "...you still want me to take it off, don't you."

He sighed. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable," he reasoned, "but I want to see who you really are behind the mask, too. And kiss you properly. But still."

I was quiet for a moment. Obviously this was the next step if we were to bond any more closely than we already had. And it wasn't as if I was ugly or anything. As long as it was Lucas, it was fine. What could go wrong? "Alright, fine. Have it your way." I reached up and slid it off unceremoniously, shaking my hair out of stagnation in the process. I set it aside, carefully, on the desk. When I heard the strangled gasp in response, something inside my stomach dropped inexplicably.

He looked as if he'd seen a ghost. A huge, terrifyingly gruesome ghost. His entire body was frozen solid with an invisible force that rivaled metric tons of pressure. Every drop of color in his face had vanished. His mouth hung agape, almost haphazardly, as if he didn't know it was open. And his eyes. They weren't so much small as they were simply overwhelmed, lids stretched wide with pupils flicking to and from several different parts of my face before finally meeting my eyes for the very first time. His hands twitched from where they hung beside him, all other motor functions seemingly rendered useless.

There was nothing I could say to him. He probably wouldn't have heard my words, anyway.

We stood there like that, in what felt like complete limbo, for a long time. Sometimes his mouth would twitch like he meant to speak, but for the most part we were motionless. I could only wait patiently for another, more informative reaction. What exactly had caused such a ruckus in his head was beyond me. Never had the sight of my bare face elicited such emotions in anyone ever before.

Eventually, he somewhat regained his vocal ability. His only word at first was a stuttery, "C-Claus."

I couldn't even bring myself to make a joke about how ugly I must have been to scare him so.

My silence didn't appear to help him much. He still stared, mostly at my newly unobstructed eye now, lost for words. The tension in the air was palpable. It was clear that nothing significant would happen if I kept quiet.

I leaned forward the tiniest bit, calling forth every bit of willpower I had within me to come off as at least somewhat gentle. "What's wrong?"

He didn't move. His mouth flapped openly as he struggled for words. I saw his eyes shining in the dull light of the room, his face contorting into the epitome of frustration and pain. "I...y-you..." he stumbled as he formed his thoughts. I did my best to keep my own face from betraying my carefully neutral expression. "...I don't know what to do," he managed to choke out, breaking eye contact with me and dropping his gaze to the floor.

The vagueness of the statement frustrated me. Just what exactly did he mean by that? But this wasn't the time for arguing. It was obvious he needed help, whatever the cause might have been. The reasoning was for him to know and me to find out later. The important thing right now was to calm him down.

So I grabbed his shoulder, sparing no extra effort to come off as gentle or sweet. "Do what you think is right."

That seemed to be the right answer, as he relaxed the tiniest bit under my hand after a few moments. He still wore a look of internal conflict, but he managed to nod at me faintly. I almost smiled at him as I nodded back. Almost. He slowly moved away from me, then, towards my bed. I made no attempt to stop him. I trusted him enough to know he wouldn't do anything questionable at this point.

He flopped down in a heap and curled himself up protectively, effectively shutting me out. I allowed him his space.

Thinking in-depth about things had always been a downfall of mine, and this time was no exception, either. I sat at my desk, chair positioned in such a way that I had Lucas' form within my peripheral vision, unable to keep myself from wondering. Why had Lucas reacted in such a way, that was the main problem. Looking back, he hadn't looked so much scared as he'd looked horrified. But not necessarily because of me. It didn't make any sense, and if there was one thing that frustrated me more than anything in this world, it was not knowing things or reasons or what have you.

But it didn't stop there. What would happen now? Would things go back to normal? Would things never be the same again? When the thought of Lucas' withdrawal from me hit, I found myself legitimately unnerved. It was entirely possible. A firm inkling of fear gripped at my insides, leaving me all the more desperate inside. I didn't think I could take it if Lucas rejected me. I had gotten so used to his presence, and its correlating effect on me. He was all I really had.

Though he wasn't actively watching me, I kept my outer appearance in check for Lucas' sake. We couldn't both be a nervous wreck at the same time. I had to keep myself calm. Worrying would solve nothing. Slowly the cold, commandeering mindset I usually donned along with my helmet came back to me. My mind was clear. Now all that was left was to wait.

I waited for a long time, too. He was completely still for ages—I could barely see his irregular breathing. My internal clock told me that around two hours had elapsed before he made any sort of effort to move himself. When he did, he flipped himself over, staring at me who had been staring at him. I couldn't make out his expression from where I sat.

Eventually he sighed. "...okay." I debated on whether or not to speak in response, but he ended up continuing. "I...I'm going to take your advice, Claus."

I didn't know what that meant, but at this point it mattered very little. My head dipped in a nod as I stood up. "Good."

He hesitated before mirroring my action, standing up a bit shakily before approaching me, eyes betraying his capricious stance.

"Don't force yourself," I reprimanded lightly.

He all but ignored me, instead reaching up to feel my hair. He smiled a smile that defied its meaning, looking somber and accepting instead of joyous. "It's pretty thick."

I didn't know how to respond, so I let him continue fiddling with my hair instead. He brushed through it a few times before fashioning it into a particular style, with a good amount protruding from the back of me head. He sighed. "...yeah."

Part of me thought this was a bad idea, but I had to know. "Should I keep the helmet on from here on out?"

Contrary to what I'd expected, his face barely changed. He looked into my eyes now. "If that makes you more comfortable."

"I asked you what you wanted."

"It's not my face, Claus."

Something about that name being used now made me angry. My eyes narrowed, mouth pulling down into a scowl. "Lucas, this isn't a goddamn joke. If that's going to happen every time, you can bet your ass I'll keep it on forever." I didn't regret any of it.

He looked mildly shocked at my sudden change in demeanor. "I...it won't happen again."

I didn't move. "That doesn't answer my question."

His face fell a bit. Hands that previously fiddled with my hair now cradled my face. "I think..." he trailed off, and a crack in his facade showed that his uncertainty was still very much present, "...that you should keep it off around me."

I still wanted more answers. "...why?"

He knew that question wasn't meant for the helmet directly. "...it just caught me off-guard, that's all." He chuckled a bit to make his lie seem good-willed.

So that was how it was going to be. But, like I said, it wasn't exactly fair to be angry. Maybe he was trying to protect me from some knowledge that he thought would hurt me. Something deep. About myself. Something I'd been wondering about ever since I regained consciousness some three years ago. Things I'd striven to remember. Dangled in front of me and taken away, just like that.

"...I see," was my chosen response.

**_—e—n—d—c—h—a—p—t—e—r —_**

**_A/N: Haaaah. We're finally getting somewhere._**

**_You guys are too nice to me, you know that? Like goddamn, all those nice reviews. I left you guys hanging for YEARS. Are you all masochists?! /shot But Good Guy Lukeprism knows how to make it up to you. Back to back updates lol am I right you guys-_**

**_Seriously, though, thank you for reading/reviewing/just being fabulous people. I love you more than you think. C:_**


	7. The Masked Man wants Out

**_A/N: WHY THE HELL ISN'T AGREEANCE A WORD ANYMORE. That's bull. I'm using it anyway._**

**_WARNINGS: You know._**

**_DISCLAIMER: You know this, too._**

**—s—t—a—r—t—c—h—a—p—t—e—r—**

After some careful observation, consideration, and nights spent thinking much too hard on the matter, I've come to the conclusion that Lucas needs to get out of here. And quickly.

A few days ago I touched him. Grabbed him by the upper arm on a whim. The lack of resistance I felt, even if he was relaxed, was jarring. Naturally I then commanded him to do his best against me in an arm wrestle of sorts. I think that was when he realized it himself. His muscles were deteriorating, withering away after having gone so long without use. He could barely make my arm give way at all, with a minimal amount of opposition.

He was also very pale; his skin was pallid and lifeless, giving away the fact that it hadn't seen a single beam of direct sunlight in literal months. We ate the same amount of food everyday, but he was out of shape; his face was noticeably skinnier than it used to be, and his stomach jutted out when he bent over or sat down. His eyes were dull. His demeanor was subdued. He was slowly dying, at least in a spiritual sense, right before my eyes.

I had confronted Doctor Andonuts about this a few days ago. He was in agreeance with my points, noting that it was one of the reasons that normally prisoners were subject to manual labor of some kind. He had offered to take a look at him, but I declined; that wasn't a privilege prisoners usually got, and I didn't need anymore suspicion regarding Lucas' situation than I was already dealing with.

Fassad had taken to harassing me even more lately than he usually did. "How's it going with that captive of yours?" he would ask casually, with that silky smooth voice that did little to mask his jeering undertones. "I would have had him begging to be a part of the Pigmask Army _long_ ago. Why don't you just hand him over? You must be _dreadfully_ _tired_ of sharing your room with such insolence." I had a distinct feeling he would soon take matters into his own hands whether I approved of it or not.

"Progress is being made," I always responded, flatly, refusing to give him the attitude he was prodding for. It wasn't a lie, either; Lucas' influence was rubbing off on me more than I cared to admit.

Last night I had spent on the control deck of the mothership. I wasn't interested in the course we had set; it was always the same, eternally circling the Nowhere Islands and keeping watch on all that lay below. Instead I searched the database, pulling up every file I could find on the subject of PSI-supressing technology. From what I could pin down, the chip relied heavily on magnetism, but there were no files in the database describing how exactly it worked. There was no way I could ask Andonuts about this; as nice as he was, he worked first and foremost for the King, and he wasn't stupid enough to assume I was only interested mildly, with no ulterior motive. Still, it was a start.

Lucas was still asleep on that cot of his, which had been moved from the other side of the room to my bedside by his own hand. I sat upright of the side opposite him, completely dressed with the exception of my helmet. Since the incident I had taken to keeping it off my head, at least when within the confines of the room. Even his breathing seemed slightly off-beat, like it required effort.

That was it. Today was the day.

_-asdfjkl;-_

"What?"

I was busy going through my possessions, deciding quickly what was vital and what was expendable. "You're leaving this place."

He looked very confused, and for good reason. Just minutes ago I had returned with food; not just for breakfast, but for every meal today and tomorrow. From what I could see, we were currently above a rural area, with a lot of forestry nearby. Best to have cover just in case. He was silent before he chuckled nervously. "I just…what do you mean? I can't just leave."

I didn't look up at him; I couldn't. I felt the hot sear of guilt deep down, and it made me rather angry. "Not on your own, no. Of course I'll be helping."

My gaze was fixed on the task at hand even as I heard his approaching footsteps, but at his touch my eyes flicked to the side, and I found his expression to be unexpectedly horrified. "But, I can't leave _you_," he said, and that made me feel…angrier.

"_Stop it,_" I said, more harshly than I'd intended to, but pushed his hand away all the same. I just didn't understand; one day he keeps secrets that obviously involve me in some way and pretends that it (and I, by way of association) wasn't important, and the next he insists that I'm something of worth. "You…I appreciate your reciprocal affection towards me, but you need to realize that you are dying and it's my fault."

"Dying?" His voice was just as intense as mine. "Claus, I'm fine. I may not be in perfect condition, but I'm okay. I'm not about to fall over dead."

"If this continues, you will." _Either by my hand or Fassad's. _I couldn't bring myself to say that out loud.

"Give me some credit here, I'm not that weak."

I stopped my rummaging so suddenly that Lucas flinched away slightly. I turned my exposed head to face him, my eyes narrow and cold. "Are you saying that you intend to sit here for the rest of your life, just to prove that you aren't weak enough to die right away, just to prove to me in some twisted way that you love me?" His face fell, and in that moment I knew that he knew I was right.

"Y-You're right," he murmured. "I'm being selfish here. I'm supposed to be pulling needles and saving the world." Then he began to laugh, in a way that I knew was not the proper way to be laughing. "I've become nothing but a trained lapdog, haven't I?"

I didn't answer him, instead looking at the things I had gathered. All of that was my fault. It was up to me to rectify it. "You're not the only one who is selfish. I'm coming with you."

Now the blonde looked surprised. "You're leaving too?"

"I…" Thinking about it now, I had always been selfish. Never thinking about anything from any perspective other than my own. Keeping my rouge emotions locked up inside and only displaying the nastiest of them. Taking what—or who—I wanted when I wanted it and never letting it go. There was only a single person who was ever able to change that. "I can't bring myself to be a puppet of senseless destruction any longer. Lucas," I now turned toward him, who had an expression of awe on his face. "Teach me how to fight for what you believe in."

Lucas could only offer me a broken smile. "If only I knew how."

"You did once. I saw it in your eyes. All we need to do now is get you to remember." I unzipped my jacket. "This is that step."

"But…how? We can't just waltz out of here. It's broad daylight."

"You would think that," I conceded, shoving necessities into my jacket one by one. "But as incapable as the pigmasks act, they're surprisingly efficient at keeping watch late at night. Our best bet would be right now, when no one expects anything of importance to happen."

"I'd cause a ruckus if I stepped foot out of the room freely."

"You won't, then," I said simply, turning towards him fully now with the last necessary item I had located; shiny metal handcuffs. "For all intents and purposes, you're still my prisoner."

He wore a look of realization. "I see. So then, I should act rebellious."

"No. You should act…broken."

_-asdfjkl;-_

The two of us walked down the narrow hallways of the lower deck none too easily, with how cramped they were to begin with. The upper level of the ship had been no problem; very few people were free during this time of day, with most everyone doing something or another in their assigned posts. Now that we had progressed into the more populated areas, though, it was vital that we act as expected.

I pushed Lucas along in front of myself via the tip of my arm cannon rather aggressively. He was playing his part well; his whole body was hunched over noticeably, his face down towards the ground. He followed my voiceless commands without so much as a sound.

Most of the pigmasks we encountered were of a lower status, so they were so panic-stricken to see me unannounced that they simply backed themselves against the walls and saluted hastily, occasionally squealing uncontrollably. Needless to say, no questions were asked, so we were able to advance without much question. We were close.

Everything was going according to plan until Fassad showed up.

"Why, Commander!" he noticed us quite genially, voice echoing down the corridor from behind. It took every ounce of self-control I possessed to refrain from flinching visibly. "I didn't expect to see you down here today. And it looks like we have an unexpected guest here as well," he nearly purred, walking forward to assess Lucas for himself. "Hello there. I've heard much about you, boy."

I was legitimately worried, but Lucas handled himself well enough, not even giving Fassad a glance and instead opting to stare at the ground. Fassad simply grunted. "Hmph." He turned towards me now. "What exactly are you doing down here, then, Commander?"

"I was just going to show him how lucky he is by taking him down to see the other prisoners," I lied easily; luckily enough the prisoner's barracks were in the same direction we were currently headed.

"Oh really?" he said smugly, and I knew what was coming next. "I'll join you."

"That's quite alright," I rejected him, not bothering to come off as polite. "I'm sure I'll be able to get the point across on my own."

His eyes narrowed, but that arrogant smirk never left his face. "Oh? That's a shame." He chuckled. "You sure do like keeping him all to yourself."

Carefully I controlled my expression. I had known him to be suspicious of me since the beginning, really. He never had taken my word for anything, serious issue or not. "That's because he's valuable. You know this."

The dark-haired man simply made a noncommittal grunt in response. His gaze traveled from my face to my torso, and it was then that I knew that he knew exactly was was going on. "You seem to have…put on a few pounds, Commander."

I stepped away from the hand he reached out towards my stomach, and he slowly raised his chin, looking now down at me. "It seems you've grown soft, Commander," he now sneered, having finally been given the reason needed to reveal his true self. "But you realize you and that boy are not going anywhere."

I stood upright and pushed Lucas forward, who stumbled a bit but raised his head now, eyes wide in disbelief. "You realize that you can't stop me."

His expression darkened considerably. "You forget that you're surrounded by loyal troops." As soon as he'd uttered these words, those pigmasks nearby jumped nervously but nevertheless pulled out their weapons obediently; Fassad technically outranked me.

Despite this seemingly desperate situation, I kept my wits about me; I knew this ship just as well as they did. We weren't far from our ultimate destination anyhow—all I needed was a distraction. "You can't kill me," I reminded him as I looked about. "You need me."

"Ah _ah_," Fassad interjected, waggling a finger at me like I was a child. "That's not true. We just need _someone_ with the power of PK Love; who exactly it is is no matter. Since you pose the bigger threat at the moment, it'd be completely alright if you were shot dead right here and now."

My stomach dropped as I realized that he was absolutely right; now that I had taken Lucas and trapped him here, one of us was completely expendable.

I heard Lucas make a sound of surprise behind me, and when I turned I saw a pigmask had grabbed him by the arm; he was still handcuffed and all but helpless. I started towards him, but I heard the metallic scraping sound of a gun being cocked. This was it—I was surrounded and outnumbered and unnecessary.

I was probably going to die.

Even with this thought in mind, though, my mind was whirling with possibilities of getting through this. Mine was not the only life at stake here.

"No! Leave him alone!" Lucas shouted. "It was me! I gave him the idea. It's _my_ fault, let him go!"

Now Fassad just laughed. "You can cry all you'd like, boy, but you're not the one with the capacity to kill us all at the moment."

Now, while he was distracted, I whirled around and raised my cannon arm up, firing a single shot of condensed psychic energy at the above fire-safety sprinkler. It exploded, the high-pressure water cascading down onto the unsuspecting general and his underlings. They all recoiled, raising their arms instinctively.

It was here that I took my chance; darting away from Fassad, I rushed the unfortunate pigmask that had grabbed Lucas. He was caught off-guard and raised his pistol to fire, but I knocked it away easily and shoved my cannon into his abdomen, releasing a charged shot. He was unconscious before he hit the ground, and I pushed the startled Lucas ahead of me insistently. "Go, _now!_" He didn't hesitate.

As we ran, several pigmasks stood in our way, having overheard all the noise. Quickly I sprinted ahead, unsheathing my lightning saber and swinging it once, twice, three times for good measure. Crackling electricity whipped along the corridor, harshly shocking anyone who came into contact with it. We avoided the collapsed bodies on our way past them, now side-by-side.

Bullets whizzed by our bodies now, the officers behind us having regained control of themselves. "Running will get you nowhere!" I could hear Fassad's voice over the trampling, more serious than I had ever heard it.

"We're almost there," I said, disregarding all the noise and danger and buzzing in the back of my own head. "There, up ahead, the big door on the left."

Once there we both frantically went to force the door open. Predictably, it was locked. I cursed aloud. "Get back," I warned, and Lucas complied. I put my one good hand over the locking mechanism and shouted, "PK Thunder!" The jolt completely fried the input pad, but the door had been released from it's lock. I shoved it open halfway before pulling Lucas inside and forcing the door back to its initial position. A quick PK Fire melded the door shut tight, buying us a few minutes.

"Alright," I sighed, for the moment relieved. The adrenaline flowing through me was so potent I was visibly shaking. "From here we drop out."

"Drop out?!" Lucas repeated my words loudly, and for the first time I glanced at his face. He was shaking much more than I was, and his expression conveyed his fear and exhaustion. "We can't just walk down the ladder nonchalantly now!"

"You're absolutely right," I said, walking over to him and slashing expertly at his handcuffs. They broke apart. "We are literally dropping out."

"_What?_"

I hurried over to the control panel, pressing the button to open the hatch, but it was unresponsive as well. I growled as I ran back to the hatch itself and began to open it manually. "You're just going to have to trust me."

I heard him approach, but stop a few feet away. "I don't hear them anymore…" he observed.

I grunted as I threw the hatch open, and the air flow rushed suddenly into the room, blowing us both back a bit. "Don't assume it means they've stopped. Come here."

He did as I said, watching as I unzipped my jacket long enough to pull out a conglomerate of rope. "What can they do now that the door's sealed shut?"

"I don't want to find out." I pulled him closer by the hand, motioning for him to turn around. When he did, I pressed myself up against his back, and he let loose a quiet breathy noise as I tied him to me as tightly as I could without suffocating us. "Is it too tight?"

"N-no," he spluttered, telling me that it was indeed too tight, but I would much rather it have been too tight than too loose in this kind of a situation.

I stowed my lightning saber away in my belt. "Do not let go of the rope."

I could hear him swallow. "Right."

"On three. One, two, th_ree_—"

Suddenly the wind was whipping past our ears and for a moment I could hear nothing at all. The ground below began approaching at an alarming rate, and Lucas began to scream.

I reached for the button on the strap of the pack I wore on my back—instantly clothed black wings sprang forth, catching the wind below us and slowing our decent. The jet fired on in unison and suddenly I was in control; I swerved right, evaluating how Lucas' weight would affect my flight. I was considerably slower, and I couldn't maintain our altitude very well. "W-We're _flying!_" Lucas breathed, and I could hardly hear him.

A sudden boom in the not-so-distance caught my attention and I went to look at what it was, only to have to veer left almost instantaneously to dodge a large cannonball. Lucas shrieked. "Wh-what was that?"

On the front of the mothership there were various cannons to deal with any threat of formidable size, and all of them were currently manned and trained directly on the two of us.

"They're firing," I said.

If he had said anything in reply, I couldn't hear it on account of the simultaneous booms and subsequent incoming missiles and cannonballs. Frantically I swerved and dived away, trying to both dodge and get further away at once, but dodging things you cannot see is difficult business.

"Claus!" Lucas shouted from below me, daring to raise a hand to point down at the ground. "The trees!"

He was right; if we could get down to the shelter of the trees, they'd be unable to locate us. We were still rather high in the air, though.

A single shot came a little too close for comfort, and Lucas pulled his arms and legs inwards, curling up as best he could. I reached for my pack's strap once again, leaning forward and pressing one of the buttons. The wings retracted and we began dropping like a rock, only being propelled by the jet towards the ground. It was risky business because my range of movement was now limited, but the faster we were in the cover of the forest, the better.

One moment everything was fine, and the in next it was me who was screaming.

A shot had managed to graze my jetpack, and as a result it burst into a fiery mess against my back. Immediately we began spinning out of control, still hurtling towards the ground with nothing left to break our fall. My vision flashed white.

"_Claus!_" Lucas cried, limbs now flailing wildly in panic. "Claus, are you alright?!"

The intense pain flooding from my back to my brain and throughout every nerve in my body told me that no, I _wasn't alright_, but I didn't have time to be anything but. "I'm fine," I yelled, trying desperately to reorient us so that I was closest to the ground. We hurtled closer and faster and for the first time in my memory I had no idea what to do.

_Now_ I was really going to die.

The howling wind as it passed my ears and the now-distant cannon fire were mere whispers in the back of my mind at this point. Frantic screeches of my name were the only thing I could focus on, and they reminded me of my purpose. If I was alone in this, I would probably have given up at this point. But there was someone else with me. Someone important, someone vital to the world's survival, someone I cared for deeply. _Someone_.

I brought all my appendages together, hugging the blonde I had taken charge of protectively. "Don't let go!"

He grabbed onto not the rope, but my arms, so tightly that I wondered if he really had been losing his strength after all. "Never!"

I waited until we were mere dozens of meters away from the treetops. Tucking my head into Lucas' shoulder, I shouted as loudly as I could bear to. "PK Shield!" Thousands of shiny pastel panes of PSI materialized, surrounding us and solidifying into a mass below us. I closed my eyes.

As we broke through the trees and collided with the ground, I don't think either of us were conscious.

**—e—n—d—c—h—a—p—t—e—r—**

**_A/N: Hi here's a chapter where stuff happens bye_**

**_It all just happens so quickly…ó _e probably should have spaced this out more through multiple chapters but y'knowwwww_**

**_Please review and point out all the mistakes I've made because there are probably many that I won't see until after this is live and I've embarrassed myself (then again that's every chapter ever aHAH)._**

**_Good niiight, and thank you for reading._**


	8. The Masked Man regains Consciousness

**_A/N: Hi. I hope you've been doing well. I'm sorry I haven't been keeping with that schedule I came up with…tumblr has pretty much eaten up all my free time lately._**

**_Anyway, here's another chapter. A bit short, but an update nonetheless._**

**—s—t—a—r—t—c—h—a—p—t—e—r—**

When my eyes opened, the first thing that registered in my mind was the red.

Even just thinking about moving hurt, but I forced myself to extend my arms, pushing myself up from the forest floor slowly. Sitting upright, I first scanned the immediate area for any traces of Lucas.

He was only a few feet away, lying face down on the grassy ground. The shirt he wore was noticeably torn and he had quite a few scratches but other than that looked to be relatively okay.

So then, the blood on the ground belonged to me.

I looked at myself as best I could, not missing the fact that my helmet was missing; jacket torn severely in places, but no real visible cuts. It was only my back that was truly wounded, judging by the searing pain that occurred no matter how slowly I attempted to maneuver myself. Seeing as how there was no way I could tend to it myself, I opted instead to crawl over to more thoroughly assess the blonde.

It took a fair amount of effort to flip him over, more so than expected. He stirred a bit but his eyes remained closed. There were a few small cuts on his cheeks and forehead, but nothing major. The PK Shield had broken our fall rather well.

"Lucas," I said, unsure if he was concious. My voice was weak.

He shifted where he lay, head turning in the direction of my voice. "Are...we dead?" he asked, and I couldn't tell if he was joking.

"No, we're still very much alive." I brushed a bit dirt off his face. "You seem to have suffered minimal injuries."

He grunted in response, pushing himself up into a sitting position. "What about you?"

I was silent for a moment. "My back has seen better days," I relented, tempted to shrug if it weren't for said back problem.

Lucas' face turned towards me once again, having become more alert. "That's right," he recollected the events prior. "Oh, please don't tell me it's—" He stopped, looking past me a bit. I was willing to bet he'd seen the blood.

Instead of continuing, he forced himself up, walking around me to investigate. I could tell it was as bad as I thought it was by the way he inhaled sharply through his teeth. "Not pleasant?"

"N-no."

More silence followed, until he kneeled down behind me noisily. "What can I do? It needs to be bandaged or covered or something and we didn't bring any kind of first aid oh _God_ Claus I don't know what—"

"Calm down," I urged quietly. "Panicking won't solve anything. It isn't life threatening at the moment, anyway. Is it still bleeding?"

"A...a bit."

I thought about what we had at our disposal. "Okay. I'm going to need you to help me take my clothes off."

"Wh-what?"

"You're right, I didn't bring anything in the way of first aid, and that was an oversight. Bandaging it is a good idea, and though we don't have any bandage, my shirt and jacket are ruined anyway; I can rip the cloth apart into strips."

"I see. Alright."

I first removed the things from my jacket that I had thought to bring along—the now-smushed food, a canteen, and some rope, among other things—before we began, managing to stuff them into my pockets instead. Our group effort was not without its hinderances, however; parts of the cloth stuck to my burned flesh like glue, taking chunks of skin off with it. Lucas was clearly put off by this but assisted anyway, pulling gingerly. Eventually my torso was bare.

I began pulling my undershirt apart into long, thin strips, while Lucas pulled at the collar of my jacket, fists of cotton coming off easily. At my suggestion he dabbed at my back with cotton drenched in saliva, cleaning as best he could. I began tying the strips that Lucas lined up, as tightly as was possible while still allowing for a decent range of movement. There were just enough strips to cover my back adequately.

"Better," I said, though it wasn't really much of an improvement as of yet; it still stung incessantly. Briskly I stood up, wincing at the resulting pain but allowing it no lingering thought. There were more pressing issues at hand.

Glancing up to the sky, I tried hard to remember what color the sky had been before we crash-landed in the forestry—all the crazy weaving and dodging that had gone on made his memory of such things rather fuzzy. From what I could gather, it had been early in the afternoon when we had made our escape and the sky was now darkening above us.

"We've been out cold for a good while," I concluded. "We should get going."

"You're right." He waited for a moment for me to make a move, and when I didn't he shifted a bit. "Wh...which way?"

"I'm not entirely sure." The forest itself was oddly colored; instead of the everyday greens and browns of the Sunshine Forest, various shades of pink and purple surrounded them on all sides, obviously putting them in Murasaki Forest. That being the case, the fastest way to Tazmily was due south, but with the sun nearly gone it was difficult to tell our directions apart from each other. "According to my internal navigational instruments, north is that way. South would obviously be in the opposite direction, but I have no idea where inside of the forest we are."

Lucas hmm'd. "As long as we're heading south, we should get there at some point."

I had begun to look around for the one item unaccounted for thus far—my helmet. Figuring it had flown off sometime between the time the PK Shield broke and us hitting the ground, it couldn't have bounced too far away. Sure enough, it lay a few meters to the left of us, left lens cracked a bit but otherwise intact. Picking it up and placing it back atop my head I approached the blonde once more. "Alright, let's move."

For a good while we were completely silent, with the exception of our footfalls crunching in the grass below as we walked. What animals or chimeras were left in the forest were nowhere to be seen, probably due to the loud booms of the mothership and our own rather conspicuous arrival. Even the air was still around us, as if the entire forest was holding its breath in anticipation of some future event.

I found myself a bit anxious. What if something did happen? Knowing Fassad, and King Porky above him, we wouldn't be allowed to escape that easily; they probably knew where we were trying to go, and if they hadn't already sent troops after us they would no doubt cut us off outside the forest soon after they exited. I was confident in my ability to protect myself, but if even a handful of men came at us simultaneously, I wasn't completely sure I could keep us both safe.

Unfastening the hilt from my belt, I held the lightning saber out to Lucas. "Here."

Lucas gave me an almost surprised look. "What's this for?"

"Just in case."

He must've understood my line of thinking without me explaining verbally, because his expression morphed into one of understanding before he took me up on my offer, his fingers brushing against mine in the process.

A little while later it began to rain down on us. The drizzle was a bit annoying, but wasn't getting us very wet with the canopy above catching many of the small drops, so we continued on our way. If it had stayed like that, we would have been able to make much more progress that initial night, but just as our luck would have it the sprinkle of water turned into a torrential downpour of sizable proportions. That was a no-go; the ground would be mushy, we would hardly be able to see where we were going, and I had no need for any kind of sickness, especially from Lucas.

We made our way ahead to a tree with particularly wide leaves that diverted the rainwater so that there was a patch of semi-dry ground to take refuge on. Ducking our way underneath, there was just enough space to accomodate us both comfortably. We sat next to each other, the cloth of our pants touching, waiting out the rain.

Unfortunately enough, it showed no signs of stopping anytime soon, meaning that we were stuck there for the night. I slipped the brown paper bag out of my right pocket and opened it up, handing the blonde beside me a couple oddly-shaped rolls. "Here. You're probably starving."

He took it gently. "Thanks, though I'm probably not so much as you."

I shrugged my shoulders by a fraction, trying and failing to keep my back from burning in response. "I'm never really hungry in the first place," was what I responded with, stuffing a roll of my own into my mouth. Hunger could be both distracting and debilitating; it, like most of my other senses, had been dulled significantly to extend my metaphorical battery life.

As much as it bugged me to sit within a tight space in soggy pants and bandages, I wasn't fond of the idea of re-tying the bandages or trying to maneuver out of said pants, so I bore it as best I could; the cool and moist of the cloth made my back feel a bit better anyhow. Lucas, on the other hand, slipped his shirt off and laid it more or less flat on the ground beneath his raised legs. Like that we sat for a while, listening to the calming sound of the rain pelting leaves and the ground.

"I know it isn't the comfiest of circumstances, but you should get some sleep." I took my helmet off for a moment to give my face a bit of air before sliding it back on. "Today was a long day, but I'm willing to bet tomorrow will be even longer."

When I didn't get a response for a few moments I glanced over at him; his eyes were already closed. He then sighed through his nose, more content than anything else.

"You know, I've probably done more today than in the entirety of my time up there in that lousy blimp combined," he spoke, his voice similar in volume to the rain. "We're not in the best situation, and you're hurt pretty bad, but I feel good. Better than I have in a while."

The way he ended his sentence implied that he, subconsciously or not, sought a response. I thought about the day we'd just had objectively. Having our master plan foiled, chased into a situation that forced some dire actions be taken, being shot down from the air, crash-landing in the middle of an unforgiving forest, and being mercilessly flooded. After all of that, he was still able to say he felt fine. Either he had officially gone crazy, or he had remembered what it felt like to defy his enemies, to do as he pleased, to be free.

"I'm glad."

We exchanged no more words after that, and from the way his breathing had slowed considerably I could tell he had dozed off in the meantime. I wasn't particularly tired myself, but with the rhythmic patter of rain above my head and warmth emanating from the other boy's sleeping form it was harder to stay awake than not. I closed my eyes and waited for my surroundings to fade out.

_-asdfjkl;-_

"Hey! I think the trees are starting to thin out!"

We had been trudging through the mud for a good couple of hours now, thanks to the prior night's impromptu shower; my boots looked as if they'd never be clean again. I looked up at the treetops. Sure enough, the canopy above was thinning, and the trees were spread further from each other than usual. We were getting close.

The blonde to my right began walking at a faster pace, clearly excited at the thought of finally being out of the forest. I wasn't all that fond of the pink maze of foliage either, but I couldn't help my skepticism; I had a feeling something would be awaiting us when we made our move outside, and that it wouldn't be welcoming in nature.

Needless to say, my first steps into the clear, unrestrained sunlight were ones of caution, while Lucas practically pranced into the warmth. "Look! We're out!" he laughed, running ahead of me before turning to face me with a big, genuine smile. He was happy. Though I had never seen such potent emotion on his face before, it brought to me a sense of déjà vu.

I looked around—around us, behind us, above us. Nothing out of the ordinary seemed to be within eyeshot. The skies were clear and the field ahead of us was rather empty but welcoming. A considerable number of buildings loomed in the distance, to the south. _Tazmily_.

We seemed to be in the clear, and I should have been appreciative of the ease of our escape thus far, but the foreboding feeling in the pit of my stomach wouldn't leave even as we made our way across the wide-open ground, towards civilization. _Anyone could see us from here. We're sitting ducks if we're caught out here. Where are they?_ It wasn't as if I wanted us to be caught, but this felt…too easy.

"I hope Duster and Kuma and Boney and…everyone, I hope everyone's alright," Lucas mumbled, more to himself than to me.

"I'm sure they're fine," I assured him. _It isn't them that Porky's concerned with._

"You're right," he nodded. "They're okay. They know how to handle themselves." He squeezed the hilt of the saber I had lent him the night before tightly in his hands; I wasn't the only one concerned about how quiet it was.

It would only get quieter as we approached Lucas' hometown, and with a sinking feeling I realized that I had now unwittingly put Lucas in more jeopardy than ever.

**—e—n—d—c—h—a—p—t—e—r—**

**_A/N: Next chapter will probably be more interesting, especially if you think that everything's gonna be fine now lol_**

**_Thank you for reading! Have a good one._**


	9. The Masked Man is Captured

**_A/N: Sorry about the lack of updates and such. Had to get my life together and such now that I'm officially an adult. Yeah….adult. /laughs_**

**_Another short but sweet chapter. Next one is already started, though, so there shouldn't be too long of a wait…_**

**_WARNINGS: uhm claus gets kinda bodied, lucas suffers some pain as well_**

**_DISCLAIMER: are you kidding me with this no i don't own anything now lay off_**

**—s—t—a—r—t—c—h—a—p—t—e—r—**

Just as I had predicted, our rendezvous with the people of Tazmily had not gone over quite well.

The first sign of trouble became apparent when we came near the sizable wooden arch that stood tall over the town's entrance. The one person guarding his post had backed away a bit before dashing off in the town's direction, as soon as he had caught sight of us clearly.

"I didn't recognize that guy," Lucas said at length, after a period of silence.

"And you knew everyone in Tazmily?"

"Not everyone…but most."

I slowed my pace. "He didn't seem too thrilled to have seen us."

Lucas looked at me, and I could tell he understood what I was getting at. "Don't worry," he assured me. "I'll explain everything. You aren't the villain they think you are. Not anymore."

We passed under the arch and pressed on, now near enough to the buildings to make out their individual bricks and planks of wood. I felt uneasy; I could tell that something was amiss. There were no people in sight, nor were there any noises at all. The silence was deafening, and I knew Lucas felt the same—he clutched at the lightning saber more tightly than ever.

I stopped in the middle of the square, looking around me. The roads were barren, the various shops and buildings boarded up and looking for all the world like a ghost town. Lucas was a bit further away, examining the well, which had seen better days; bricks and debris surrounded it, still not settled into the ground…as though it had happened recently.

It was then that I realized.

I knew better than to make sudden movements—they were watching, waiting for anything to give them a sign—but my reflexes took control. I whirled around to face Lucas directly. "Lucas, watch out, they're—"

Though I had seen it coming, I couldn't react in time. The two-by-four connected with my stomach soundly, and I reeled backwards, momentarily stunned.

My blonde companion watched on in horror, starting towards me, only to be held back by two people who had shot forward out of nowhere to assist my assailant. "No, Lighter!" He shouted, trying to push through the people that held him back. "_Please!_ He's not our enemy!"

The man, whose name seemed to be Lighter, paid Lucas no mind. He went for another swing, but I managed to dodge out of my partially-feigned paralysis. Hands grabbed me roughly from behind, and I decided that I wouldn't—_shouldn't_—fight these people. I let them seize me, but when they pulled at my back bandages I growled in pain.

"Careful, he can use some deadly PSI!" A familiar voice shouted from the left. I chanced a look around my captors to visually confirm my theory; the pink-haired girl had come to Lucas' rescue. She looked rather worse for wear, with her blue hoodie torn and soiled and her skin noticeably bruised. Her eyes locked with mine, and the hatred of her gaze was intense. "So you finally show yourself."

I didn't respond. She didn't want to hear anything I had to say, anyway.

"Kuma!" Lucas cried, and I could hear the relief in his voice. "Kuma, I'm so glad you're alright!" He pushed forward, but the men still kept him from approaching. "But you've got it wrong! He's not dangerous. Not anymore."

She didn't even spare him a glance. "Oh, Lucas…" she shook her head. "You've always been so naïve." With that said, she approached me. "Do you think he really think he has your best intentions in mind?"

Lucas was clearly put off by her demeanor, but he wouldn't be ignored. "I do," he answered stoically, and the confidence in his voice made my spine shiver. "Why else would he have risked his life trying to get me out of there?"

"Because his master is toying with you both," she snapped, and Lucas visibly flinched at her tone. "This is all a game. With the way things were, it was too easy. He had to even the playing field somehow. Do you honestly think that your escape was a success because you fought for it?"

As much as I hated to think it, this pinkette had a valid point. Porky would think something like that. But their escape had not been premeditated. It had been impromptu and secret.

"I know he's threatened you," I said, and she raised her head to cast her cold gaze upon me once more. "You probably had to fight off soldiers. That's why this town is so desolate. He's warned you that if you didn't turn us over, bad things would follow."

Kumatora chuckled darkly. "Well, aren't you a good guesser? But there's just one thing wrong with your assumption," she said, getting closer. "The only one he wants back is you."

I clicked my tongue. "For the climactic final battle," I supposed, and she nodded.

"Exactly. But we're not spineless wimps," she went on, stopping just inches in front of me. Whoever held me from behind had wrought iron strips around my appendages to prevent me from moving. "And we don't take orders from the mad pig king. We're not giving you back." She leaned in and touched my forehead. "We're holding you captive, just like you held Lucas."

Through her finger surged a tremendous amount of psychic energy, malicious in execution; she meant to render my PSI useless for a short period of time. I still wasn't at one-hundred percent capacity, but I had enough energy to resist her attempts. She made a knowing noise, like she had expected that.

"I understand. But before you do, I'd like to restore Lucas' PSI." My voice was as calm as I could keep it in such a situation; being curt with them would get me nowhere.

Kumatora's eyes narrowed, and the contempt rolled off of her in waves. "Oh really?"

I nodded. "Yes. There's a chip in his brain that's suppressing his PSI. It works electromagnetically, and the only real way to deactivate it is by surgically removing it." Her scowl intensified. "However, if I can access the materials necessary, I can temporarily create a magnet powerful enough to render the chip useless."

There was a long pause during which the girl said nothing, instead staring past me at nothing, seemingly weighing her options. She nodded. "Alright. You know how to make this magnet?"

"Yes."

"Then you'll be able to direct us from inside the cell," she nodded, and turned away. I blinked; I hadn't expected her to take me up on my offer, but I hadn't expected her to negotiate, either. Before she had even taken two steps away I was being pulled violently away, presumably towards this cell.

No one said a word to me. As they dragged me along, I could see people coming out of their hiding places. They all looked at me, some with big eyes and some with barely a glance, but they all shared a common look of scorn. It didn't surprise me. I had seen all this in dreams before.

My feet bounced up as we entered a building, the threshold as high as it was. The floorboards were squeaky and the place looked old and in disuse, but I was thrown into the lone cell anyway, surrounded on all sides by either rusty iron bars or rotting wood. If I truly wanted to do so, escape would be a breeze. But as the situation stood now, they could set me in an open field of dirt with a small square drawn in the dirt and I wouldn't dare move an inch.

The door was shut unceremoniously behind me. I was intrigued; they had left my helmet untouched, and had not asked a single question about my cannon arm. Were they that confident in my cooperativeness?

Of course, they didn't leave me alone. The two men stood watch, not willing to meet my gaze. Their faces were grim. It seemed everyone in this town was more than prepared for the war that had finally come to light.

After a while, a shadow appeared over the opening where the front door to the jail should've been. In walked the pink-haired girl, followed closely by Lucas and the rest of his companions that day—a limping man in a ragged blue shirt and a large brown dog. The blonde was noticeably more subdued; he gave me a reassuring look, but made no move towards me. A couple more people filed in after them, all holding metallic objects.

"Alright, helmet boy," the girl started, her hair motioning towards the items the people beside her held. "What do we do?"

I evaluated their items. One had a watch, another had a box of paperclips, and the last had a spatula. I sighed. "To make a magnet powerful enough to break the chip, you need something bigger. If you concentrate all the electricity required into such small areas, it'll be lethal even to fleshy organs."

She tapped her foot impatiently. "How big are we talking?"

I glanced at the bars keeping me locked away. "If you cut eight inches' worth of iron off these bars and melded them together with something like this," I held my tied arms up, "it would probably suffice."

For a moment she gauged my expression—that she could see, anyway. After that, she shook her head. "Okay. But if this doesn't work…" She didn't need to finish her sentence; the aura surrounding her was more than a sufficient explanation.

Concentrating a PK Fire into a small beam, she sliced through three of the bars like butter. After they clattered to the floor, she picked them up and handed them to the man with the limp and he put a thick strip of iron around it, after which the pinkette used another burst of fire energy to seal the bond.

"Now you're going to electrify it and then quickly heat it up. This should permanently magnetize it, or at least preserve it long enough to break the chip."

She did as I told her, and the metal sparked as she used her PK Thunder. The metal's glow turned red from the yellow, and after a few seconds she cooled it with yet another type of energy.

"Next, you have to hold it directly above his head, near the frontal lobe. Approach with it slowly…with this level of magnetism, going too fast could physically shatter the chip inside him." I kept myself from wincing at the thought. "You'll know when to stop."

Kumatora gave me a look. "What does that mean?"

I looked past her, addressing Lucas now. He gave me his undivided attention. "You need to relax, Lucas. Without the presence of anesthesia, this isn't going to be pleasant. Going from zero PSI flow to your current power level might be even more painful than when you first awoke. I'm not sure." He swallowed audibly. I grabbed the bar preventing me from physically comforting him tightly. "The princess will do her best to keep the pain down with her PK Healing, but you'll have to bear the brunt of it. I'm sorry."

The girl snapped at me. "Don't tell me what to do, metal face!" she growled, before turning to Lucas. "Don't worry about it. Duster and Boney and me, we're all here. It'll be fine."

Lucas nodded at her minutely before catching my gaze again. I nodded my own head, irritated about the fact that I had to entrust his care to them but certain of the fact that I had no other choice. I knew they wouldn't purposefully hurt him, but this was a rather important treatment.

"You ready?" she asked, and he nodded at her, face set. Kumatora hesitated only momentarily before bringing the magnet closer.

I watched on like a hawk, making sure every part of the process was as acceptable as I could make it. "Too fast," I said, and she jerked to a halt before glaring at me, continuing at an even slower pace. As she approached, Lucas close his eyes, bracing himself for the worst. Her hands got closer and closer and for a moment I wondered it perhaps the magnet wasn't powerful enough after all.

All of a sudden Lucas' body shifted forward and he dropped to his knees, hands instinctively gripping his forehead. "_Ahh!_" he yelled, caught just as off guard as his friends who had jumped at his sudden movement.

"The chip's deactivated," I said, but no one seemed to be listening. Kumatora channeled her healing energy unto the boy, but he still convulsed where he knelt, hissing at the pain. "An omega level heal would suffice better—"

"I don't _know_ Healing omega!" she yelled, clearly off-put by Lucas' pain. The crippled man attempted to hold Lucas in place and the dog merely whine behind them, powerless to help. Everyone else in the room was clearly uncomfortable. From this distance my own healing wouldn't cut it, either. Watching him suffer was borderline unbearable.

Kumatora's healing wasn't sufficient; after a few minutes, Lucas fell limp in the man's hold, face giving away his exhaustion. Thought he was unconscious, I sighed in relief—I could feel his psionic energy returning to him steadily.

The girl whispered something to him. He nodded and stood up, taking Lucas with him. As he left, the girl stood as well, heading towards me. "Don't think we owe you one now," she muttered darkly. "You're the reason he had that thing in the first place."

I nodded quietly; I hadn't forgotten my own guilt.

"You're gonna stay in here for a long time. We'll give you food—that is, if you even eat—but you're not to leave under any circumstances." After a bit of a pause, she sighed. "I'll get someone to tend to your wounds later." She turned around and left without another word, the two guards from earlier remaining.

I closed my eyes, merely hoping that there wouldn't be a circumstance under which I'd have to break out.

**—e—n—d—c—h—a—p—t—e—r—**

**_A/N: Coming up next: Lucas' POV. Thanks for reading!_**


End file.
